“Samsung Electronics will branch out into the online music business, a field long been dominated by Apple of the U.S. Choi Ji-Sung, the head of the company’s digital media division, on Friday told reporters the firm is preparing a service program similar to Apple’s iTunes in collaboration with domestic and foreign partners. It is to be launched soon,” The Chosun Ilbo reports. “Choi claimed Samsung MP3 players were better than Apple’s but so far lacked the music service. Once Samsung has its own, its players will be a match for the iPods, he added.”
Full article here.
Kim Tae-gyu reports for The Korea Times, “Samsung president Choi Gee-sung, who is in charge of the firm’s digital media division, made the remarks during a press conference late last week. ‘We are now in talks with our partners to debut a service program like iTunes of Apple. Our No. 1 priority is to help customers use our products with ease,’ the 54-year-old said. ‘Our items show healthy performances in China and Southeast Asian countries where iTunes services are not provided,’ he added.”
Full article here.
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Way too late. Samsung should focus on making flash memory and other components for iPods, there’ll be more money in that for them than wasting time and energy fighting an already-lost battle with Apple’s iPod+iTunes juggernaut.
Related articles:
Apple drops Samsung NAND flash memory investment plan – October 15, 2005
Apple and Samsung face potential antitrust probe by Korean FTC over NAND flash pricing – October 07, 2005
NAND flash prices rise ahead of Apple’s “One more thing…” event – October 07, 2005
Disgruntled iPod also-rans accuse Samsung of ‘damage’ by selling Apple cheap NAND flash memory – September 29, 2005
Apple’s iPod nano forces price cuts on flash-based MP3 players in Taiwan – September 15, 2005
Apple’s music competition having tough time and the iPod nano won’t help them – September 14, 2005
Piper Jaffray: Apple seeing high demand for iPod nano – September 14, 2005
Apple iPod nano 32GB possible in second half 2006? Samsung unveils new flash memory NAND chips – September 12, 2005
Also-ran MP3 player makers miffed by Apple’s impossibly low price for iPod nano – September 09, 2005
Apple introduces iPod nano – September 07, 2005
Apple stomps competitors in flash-based MP3 player market – September 02, 2005
the only way this works is to:
1. provide a player of same/higher quality at lower price
2. provide a music store (non-subscription) of same/higher quality at lower price
3. make your songs compatible with ipods
3. provide jukebox software of same/higher quality at lower price (free!)
4. be able to make this all compatible with already purchased itunes music
…other than that, it is easy
Caddisfly has this right…except it has to roll out in several nations at once and have a HUGE library of songs to offer AND pay higher royalties to the music companies. uh….good luck on that…
The Chosun Ilbo reports: “Choi claimed Samsung MP3 players were better than Apple’s but so far lacked the music service. Once Samsung has its own, its players will be a match for the iPods, he added.”
Ummm, yeah. Right.
Keep dreaming.
Any questions, see ‘caddisfly’s’ comments. ‘Nuff said.
MaWo: ‘second’. As in, ‘Samsung should have given this project a second thought before implementing …”
I dont think it is to late. There isnt an iTunes Korea so the door is wide open. It is not just the player but the love and availability of music. You cant buy any Korean titles which they (Koreans) will love to download from a site that will likely offer music for a similar price as iTunes, which again does not have a download site for the region.
yawn . . .
I guess it will be great if you like Korean Karaokee !
Hey Scooter, please no ethnic sarcasm. Come on.
You should know, Korean music is delightful.
Go Samsung.
Gimme those Korean blues.
yah
Ying Yang
Refreshing to hear of an iTunes killer for a change, rather than the usual iPod killers. It was starting to get monotonous …
Korea
The Old China
China
The New Korea
Who kares what the koreans care?
What do the Chinese like?
iPods, iTunes, Nanos and iVideo Pods.
MW: “cannot.”
Sony sung the Samesong and look where it got them. That’s SONY … the media giant. Well … maybe you can own the Korean market.
And now exactly are Koreans supposed to get their WMP protected music when Microsoft stops selling Windows to the Korean market?
Magic word: end “Microsoft’s dominance is coming to an end…”
Next up – iTunes China and South Korea.
Problem solved.
The ipod competitors have finally figured out the real reason for their weak and declining sales.
The iPod Music Player’s seamless integration with the iTunes Music Store is what makes the iPod so successful!
The logical integration of the two separate products provides a complete portable solution for music lovers.
None of the competition, to date, offers a solution so neatly integrated and easy to learn and use.
In addition, Apple’s iPod and the iTunes Music Stores work on PC’s and Macs, while other services offer only PC compatible music files in the inferior Windows Media file format.
Unless other services begin offering songs that will play on both operating systems at home and on the market leading iPod on the road, they will never survive.
With the recent addition of video capabilities and podcast integration, the iPod takes yet another leap forward in cementing it’s current dominate position.
The only hope for a new Portable Music Player is if they can get Apple to license the Fairplay DRM so that they can offer their songs in the AAC (Mp4) file format so they play on all existing iPods.
Any new Music Store that locks out Mac users and sells songs that won’t play on the 60 million iPods out there (mostly PC users) is just pissing in the wind!
Magic Word: rest — There the iPod and then there is all the rest!
To defeat iTunes is to conduct a war.
It’s about ideology, even a religion of sorts. There’s another Iron Curtain.
The duty, essential, surpasses common effort.
Beneath success is the belief of the consumers.
Any second entry into the iTunes market must confront a sea of doubters.
What philosophical persuation does Samsung project?
Do they comprehend their duty at all?
Whether or not Apple loses out in the music business, as far as I’m concerned, the last few years have been great for Apple because the iPod has given Apple untold visibility in the world marketplace and as such, more people are buying Macs and using OS X and seeing how superior it is as compared to the alternative OS’s that are available.
I also think that now is the perfect time to start the switch to Intel (even though I like the PPC better). Hopefully, the iPod will still be as popular as it is now (I suspect it will) so when the switch is underway, people will see that they can buy Intel macs and run windows on them if they need to.
– Mark
caddisfly:
the only way this works is to:
1. provide a player of same/higher quality at lower price
2. provide a music store (non-subscription) of same/higher quality at lower price
3. make your songs compatible with ipods
3. provide jukebox software of same/higher quality at lower price (free!)
4. be able to make this all compatible with already purchased itunes music
…other than that, it is easy
Your forgot:
5. Provide a free replacement for all of the current iPods already on the market.
People who have iPods now, aren’t going to want to be new devices when the ones that they are currently using work perfectly.
MW: Given. Samsung is fighting a lost cause. It’s a given.
That should have read that they aren’t going to buy new devices, not be new devices.
It appears ALOT more so called “iTunes Killers” are on the way.
caddisfly, there’s a fifth way to make this work for the Koreans.
5) Get up to some skullduggery so that users are prevented from using iTunesS.
It could be tried by technical means, legislative means or by means of a publicity campaign.
Personally I don’t rate their chances, but I think the dirty trick option is one that they will certainly go for, along with the others.
Also, if you’re one of the big players in the flash memory biz, I don’t reccomend biting at Mr. Job’s ankles. He is known to be, well, bitchy at times and… well, no one likes to have their ankles bitten while trying to rum two large businesses. It can be annoying. I’ve heard Stevie has already been shopping around for other memory suppliers. I just hope Choi Gee-sung has a good plan as far as unloading 40% of the worlds current market if things go sour.
Oh I’m shaking in my boots over Samsung gobbling up all the “broke” Korean market. Average folks in Korea don’t have the bucks to pay for music and they’re some of the biggest illegal file sharers in the world (with a government that turns a blind eye while they reach-around for a handfull of kick back from the Korean mafia).
Open message to Samsung “Don’t fuck with me”
we’re so quick to dismiss these services, myself included.
but i think this could be different. koreans are very proud people and they might use the samsung service on the principle that it’s a korean company that provides the service.
for example, i know koreans here in the US and they use samsung cell phones almost exclusively.
that doesn’t speak for the whole asian market, of course. samsungs success beyond korea is questionable. their US penetration will be minimal at best.
they’d be smart if they just focused on providing asian music to the asian market.
Your forgot:
5. Provide a free replacement for all of the current iPods already on the market.
—
You forgot:
6.Take several months, or even years, to negotiate deals with all the record labels around the world, and try to get a better deal than Apple.
We already know the labels want a flexible pricing model, so good luck with that.
please understand that samsung is positioning itself as a luxury brand mostly in korea, but now across the world. the korean gov’t has laws that prevent electronics from say japan, and koreans are very proud of their economic developments both at home and abroad. what’s most interesting about this is how samsung is playing both sides of the fence: selling apple almost 1/2 of it’s flash memory while at the same time developing it’s own mp3 player and not it’s own music service. who’s to say that samsung won’t create it’s own drm that allows it’s players to work seemlessly with it’s players while at the same time allowing the user to download from other wmp formatted sights.
The only way to kill an ipod is to own one
oh yeah …samsung
hahahahahhahahahah
Isn’t Samsung one of the supporters of Microsoft’s ‘Plays For Sure?’ It is very telling that Samsung plans to make their own music store. Perhaps the Microsoft Music Store has not lived up to its promises. Having said that, I am certain that this will be another DRM WMA store.