“Apple Computer will announce next week its long-awaited European version of the iTunes online music store, sources familiar with the matter say. The announcement will be made on June 15, said sources familiar with the necessary licensing negotiations between Apple and music labels,” Bernhard Warner and Lucas van Grinsven report for Reuters.
“An Apple spokesman in Holland declined to comment on the specifics of the launch. However, Apple issued a statement on Monday that it would host a press conference in London on June 15. Apple billed the event, ‘the biggest story in music is about to get even bigger.’ Traditionally when Apple announces a new product or service, it is available straight away, adding to the speculation that the service will go live next week,” Warner and van Grinsven report.
“Apple launched iTunes in the United States over a year ago, capturing a commanding lead in the nascent market for music downloads… Noting the considerable buzz around iTunes and the growing market for Apple’s iPod digital music player, analysts expect Apple to catch rivals quickly in Europe… pple has kept the specifics of its plans in Europe a closely guarded secret. The company is expected to detail next week which countries it will serve and with how many songs,” Warner and van Grinsven report.
Full article here.
A copy of the Apple annoucement can be seen thanks to Macbidouelle here.
MacDailyNews Take: The UK is pretty much a certainty. The real question is which other Eurpoean countries will be included.
This is great news. I wonder when Canada will be admitted to the store…
i think apple has got a few more countries than the Napster deal, since apple’s been at it for a while, and got a nicer deal..
hey wait.. what was that bit about EU not liking apple’s ‘monopoly’ potential?
anyway.. i heard CAN. would be included.. since.. the legal stuff should be a total no-brainer (from the US.)
Rumor has it that Canada will launch the same day! Hope it’s true..
Canadian store rumors are that iTunes Canada will launch at the same time as iTunes Europe.
another rumor is that china is next . . . see previous mdn story about itunes on chinese computers.
Can iTMS sell 100,000,000 songs in one day worldwide? That would show some market dominence =)
If its really an all out European launch and Canada too, it may well be possible. How many a day do they sell in the US alone?
Buffy
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Yes iTMS can.. I buy 5000 songs this year alone
8 days to go. Oh boy.. can�t wait.
Look for stores in England (UK), Germany and France. Each will be run as the U.S. store – buyers must have a credit card/bank account and address in the specific country. Also there’s a good possibility that the iPod mini will go on sale in those countries immediately. There’s also a chance other individual countries will be announced…… we’ll know next week (unless info leaks out).
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5227553.html
ZD Net is reporting:
“Unlike the United States, where Apple pioneered and effectively defined Internet music retailing, in Europe it will be entering a brutally competitive market, which was opened up by Microsoft over the past two years”
What does MS have to do with online music retailing? What have they “opened” up. The writer never explains this, again adding the FUD about MS innovations.
FIG: Over here in Europe we have plenty of wanna-be music stores, selling Windows-media-encoded songs a la carte.
So the writer isn’t really FUDing. Remember: no iPod minis in Europe yet, no iPod hype like in the states. Apple has to rely on those mac faithful who forcefully install iTunes on the PCs of their buddies.
Canada could join in the EU
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We get Russia, Turkey and Switzerland soon so there is room for Canada too.
Then Norway, Greenland and Alaska would be the only small white spots on the map.
Qu�bec would be happy too
Ipod is simply a dummy device for dummies. Europe future is music enabled cell phone. Americans are stupid to carry 2 devices when you only need one. Vodafone Live! is planning a huge Music launch which will render Ipods obsolete. Nokia, Sony Eric, Motorola are all releasing handsets with storage and technical capabilities.
I wonder how Napster’s Chris Gorog is going to spin this one? Maybe something like, ‘Apple is now limiting choice to hundreds of millions of Europeans.’ ‘Europeans are not going to be happy limited to the iPod and iTunes.’
I’ve got a few words of advice for Mr. Gorog – sell any Roxio stock options you have before they are worthless.
Roxio stock is worthless already so Gorog is too late.
Doesn�t Matter
If Apple starts selling music to mobile telephones via iTMS Europe then it is ok.
Actually, I am glad Apple is in no hurry getting their store operational in response to Napster’s move. We all know that the stumbling block in any country/region is the labels association. By taking the time to hammer out a deal, it says to me that Apple is fighting for a better deal for the end users. Apple could have easily agreed to the deal like Euro Napster’s like other services did to the Apple-RIAA deal (it’s easier to have others do the work for you). But they don’t care about being the first, just about being fair and good. IMHO.
iTMS Europe – I greet thee with credit card(s) at the ready! ; )
—
http://homepage.mac.com/johnhood
Buffy/OGfF
Just for the record, the last time Apple reported volume was 4th May 2004 (seven days after iTunes 4.5/iTMS 3.0 launched, and D+372).
Cumulative at that point was 73.3 million tracks downloaded at 197,043 tracks/day.
Between D+365 and D+372, iTMS sold 3.3 million tracks at 471,429 tracks/day, but it should be noted that this figure included the Pepsi fiasco although that possibly had minimal efffect given that, between 11/03/04 (D+318) and D+365, iTMS moved 20 million tracks at 425,532/day.
On a positive note, between 16th October 2003 (D+171 [the launch of the Windows version]) and 4th May, iTMS has downloaded 60.3 million tracks at an average of 300,000 tracks/day.
Assuming the 15/06 announcement includes the majority of the ‘old’ EU, plus holdouts like Switzerland and Norway, it is fair to assume that Apple expect to reach around one million downloads/day globally almost instantly.
If the 15/06 announcement goes further and launches iTMS Japan as well as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Apple could reasonably expect 1.2 million tracks/day.
It could also be expected that 15/06 may also be used to announce that iTMS has ‘finally’ shipped 100 million downloads, thus getting that particular monkey off SJ’s back, although I think they’ll still be a couple of million short personally and that the 100 million announcement will wait for the July analyst call.
Doesn’t Matter:
What absolute balderdash: at the most, Motorola’s new phone will have a maximum 512MB of storage based on yet another flash device. 125 songs at 128 kits is not the same as 3556 songs at 320 kbits, no matter how much you try to hype it.
Guy from Finland, I would be very surprised if Switzerland joined the EU. I spent a year going to school there and I seem to remember only a third of the population being interested in joining. They have a good deal being independent. I dont see the Swiss using the Euro for at least 5 to 10 years from now.
Red Wings.
It is the economical reality that rules.
EU is huge economigally and in that way interesting for the Swiss.
70% supports the idea 15% dont know and 15% hate the idea. This was in the weekends news.
100 mil songs in a day is rediculous. I cant wait to see how broad of a release this is. With the China Deal, and the emminent release of iPod Minis WorldWide, Apple stock will skyrocket. Im betting on 10 million songs sold in the 1st week, barring Apple only launching in UK.
ITMS Europe on the 15th. Stevenote on the 28th. What a good month this will be!
Swiss voted 70% to 30% to not join the eu. Whatever “news” you are getting, finn, it’s farfetched. Not surprising.
the news finn doesn’t read
On a related note, has anyone else seen this?
http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/
It looks like it requires iTunes 4.6. Mmmm
Jackson:
Good spot – I have to admit the performance of all Mac sites today is a bit ropey, so I haven’t been quite as on the ball as you.
Don’t D-link or Linksys ship something like this?
Also some of the comments from this was announcement (http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/06/07/jobsd/index.php?redirect=1086611003000) are cryptic to the point of being Machiavellian.
Jobs: “The third place is in the car — right now the solutions out there aren’t very good but we are working with some folks on that”
Unlike other devices on the market, AirPort Express does not come with a remote or have a user interface, outside of iTunes, to control playback.
“This is the first step to making a connection between your computer and your stereo. Today you will have to go to your Mac to change the playlist,” said Joswiak.
So, we can surmise two things: firstly, that Apple is working with others to create optimal solutions for the car and secondly, that a future product or release of this product will have the ability to tell the host iTunes system to go forward, back, etc.
If I were Roku or SqueezeBox (or whatever they’re called), I’d be very, very afraid.
To make it easy for people�
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/06/07/jobsd/index.php?redirect=1086611003000
Also, AAPL $29.87 at 3:39 ET – up 1.09 on the day, $0.29 over the 52-week high set during the April reporting period. $30.00+ is coming any day now.