iTunes Store Goes Live Down Under
After months of delays, Apple on Tuesday launched its 21st music store in Australia, containing over one million songs and a thousand music videos. The launch had been rumored for nearly a year, but disagreements with a major record label apparently held up the launch of the service.
Songs will be priced at A$1.69 ($1.27 USD) each, A$3.39 ($2.55 USD) per video, and most albums at A$16.99 ($12.76 USD). Apple has also gained exclusive rights to offer the songs of several popular Australian artists, including Missy Higgins, Bernard Fanning, Paul Mac, Evermore, Gyroscope and The Dissociatives.
"We're thrilled to bring the revolutionary iTunes Music Store to Australia," Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes, said in a statement.
The software will also feature Australian podcasts from ABC, Triple J, Triple M and SBS Radio through the podcasting feature of the iTunes software.
As in other countries, music cards will be made available at local retailers such as Myer, Megamart, BI-LO, Coles Supermarkets, Pick 'n Pay Hypermarket, Kmart, Target, Coles Express, Officeworks and Harris Technology in denominations of A$20, $50, and $100. All prices will include GST, Apple said.
The launch of the Australian store follows Apple's extremely successful launch of the service in Japan, where iTunes sold over a million tracks in the first 96 hours of operation.