“Apple Computer Inc. plans to start a music download service in Japan by next March, according to a published report. The service is expected to become one of the largest in the country, offering some 100,000 mostly Japanese tracks, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported,” Osamu Tsukimori reports for CBS MarketWatch.
“Apple Computer (AAPL) could not be immediately reached for comment. The service is currently offered in the United States and Europe. An Apple iPod can store up to 15,000 songs,” Tsukimori reports. “Although Japan has several music download services, none work with the iPod, so users of the music player have to convert music CDs to files on their computers, the Nikkei report said.”
Full article here.
[Article updated at 9:14 pm EST with CBS MarketWatch link]
Huge huge huge… 200 million Japanese, is that right?
They love Apple over there, too.. as most on here have seen clips of the ‘longest line’ Ginza Opening..
I’m Canadian.. I’ll be getting one this month (phew) though 31 million Canadians is nothing compared to 200 million Japanese..
Good stuff guys..
Remember, CD’s over there cost like 30 bucks.. Canadians are not a priority (also) becuase our CD prices are like, 12 bucks CDN.. best in the world.
So the JP store will be geometrically (zing) more popular than the Canadian one…
Hopefully the Japanese are not as gullible as the Canadians
This is the final (major) frontier for digital music that Apple has to get into.
While it would be great for Apple to open in Australia and other places, Apple is already in 70% of the world’s music market. I think Japan will add another 10-15%. Anything else would most likely be very minimal in comparison.
There are 125-150 million Japanese.
I knew this sounded familiar….
Read the ****ing article. It’s dated JANUARY 2004. Nowhere in the article did it mention anything about a Spring ’05 release date. It implied a Spring ’04 date, however.
Maybe MDN meant to link to this article:
http://news.com.com/Apple+plans+iTunes+for+Japan/2100-1027_3-5457193.html
trippah.. care to elaborate?? I am a Canadian..
trippah seems to be trolling…
I, for one, am happy to hear about an ITMS in Japan…but, I have quite a few Canadian friends who have been chomping at the bit longer….
I’ll be happy when the ITMS finally opens for our friends up north !!
–
For background, Japan is a little smaller than California, 70% of it is mountains and of of the remaining 30%, 20% is used for agriculture. Soooo take close to half the population of the United States and make them live in 10% of California and you will have an idea of how crowded it is.
Now on the music store, this will be huge if they can keep the same pricing scheme and offer western music. CDs in Japan are much more expensive than in the States. (But they also have a lot of video rental places that also rent out the new CDs which I am not sure is seen much in the US.) If they only have Japanese songs I will use it some but they should try and have the same as offered in the US because western music is really popular here. Personally I have a US address credit card so I can use the US ITMS but there are some things I wish I could buy in Japanese music like Utada Hikaru, etc. which are extremely limited or non-existent on ITMS USA. If they want to make it really big though, they have to offer more than just domestic songs. However, I suppose it will be good for them to get their foot in the door any way they can and expand later.
Hey trippah
Don’t hold your breath. After all they were sucked into the illegal war with the United Hates. That is pretty gullible.
Then again, the japanese were not vicious enough to publically release the photos of torture victims during WW2.
Unlike the US during this Iraq escapade.
Road Warrior: Canada didn’t support the war in Iraq. We were in Afghanistan though. Hopefully the Americans remember that since they dropped a bomb on some of our troops during a training exercise…
Andy C. As an American I was very sorry to hear about the loss of the Canadian troops, it was due to the Air Force giving uppers to certain pilots, and was it a training exercise? I seem to recall it being a battle or small skirmish with the added problem of bad communication and coordinates.
Nintendo have been in the entertainment industry for many many years. The xbox is currently failing sales in Japan.
The storage that the ipod uses is made by Toshiba. Its native country is Japan. Sony have a long history and experience in portable music players, but have taken the detour trying to introduce their own media file format.
Without Japan, the ipod is not possible. They have the technology to do it their way. Their culture and social values differs to the West. Thats what Apple has to work with.