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Apple working to increase iTunes sales in Japan
Apple is pursuing new ways—including prepaid iTunes cards and free downloads at concerts—to increase sales at the iTunes Music Store in Japan. The company is also targeting consumers who commonly purchase mobile phone downloads. “Apple dominates the market for music downloads in the United States, but its iTunes online music store has about a 5% share in Japan, where most fans download songs onto mobile phones and many people prefer not to buy music online with credit cards,” reports Reuters. In Apple’s favor is the popularity of the iPod. According to BCN, iPods dominate the top nine slots of the latest digital music player sales ranking in Japan.
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1
Open iTunes Japan to countries outside of Japan. That’ll increase sales.
Posted by Cad on September 11, 2006 at 12:52 PM (PDT)
2
Agreed. However, due to licensing issues, I don’t think Apple can do that. I do see more and more J-pop popping up in the US iTMS. iTunes Japan doesn’t have a great selections in the first place. Even with labels like Avex joining, the majority of their catalog is not in iTunes.
Posted by pata2001 on September 12, 2006 at 12:34 AM (PDT)
3
I buy off the Japanese store all the time, and I agree, it needs to be opened up. Seeing as how media savvy the Japanese are, this would also greatly benefit if some of the networks started putting TV shows up there. Okay, maybe not anime for whatever reasons… But maybe some eating shows or Matthew’s Best Hit TV would be nice… Hell, I’ll take a game show if they offered it.
The biggest problem itunes faces in Japan is that Sony has no music on there at all. I’ve got lots of artists that I’d love to buy off the Japanese store and I can’t because they’re Sony artists.
Posted by dvddesign on September 12, 2006 at 8:07 AM (PDT)