iTunes replaces Sony's Mora on Yahoo Japan

Apple's iTunes continues to expand its presence overseas, landing a high-profile deal to make iTunes the default music service of Yahoo Japan. On the heels of Apple's expansion into social networking, the iTunes deal with Yahoo Japan replaces the default Sony-affiliated music download service and now offers the portal's 40 million visitors a prominent link to iTunes in the menu bar and one-click access to the download service, according to Macworld UK. The report indicates that users still have the option of making Mora their preferred source for internet music purchases: Mora is a download service run by the Sony-affiliated LabelGate.

Earlier this month, Apple announced that the Warner Music Japan catalog is now available on the iTunes Store in Japan, bringing the total number of tracks offered by Japan's iTunes store to over 4 million. Apple also said that over 90 percent of the tracks are priced at 150 yen per song.

Yahoo Japan, the country's largest portal, reaches 84 percent of the country's population accessing the internet from their homes, the report said.

Apple was able to land the deal with Yahoo Japan -- despite direct competition with Yahoo Music in the US -- because Yahoo Japan is controlled by Softbank, while Yahoo only has a minority one-third stake in the company, Macworkd UK noted.

This week Apple also launched its iTunes Festival in London, which will offer free tickets to 31 consecutive small-venue performances as well as sales of each performance, video/photos and interviews from each performance, and other highlights.

Filed under: industry
Other story tags: digital music/video