Apple iTunes Japan Hits One Million Downloads in Four Days
Given the Japanese appreciation for the musical arts, love of shopping, and ever agile mobility, it is no surprise what-so-ever that Apple’s iTunes has hit a home run with one million downloads in four days since opening the Japanese iTunes store. The country which brought us the Walkman and digital camera phones has now fallen in love with Apple (well, the US Apple probably falls second here on the popularity charts to the Beatles’ Apple Records). Japan Today reports that “The best-selling song was by Japanese group Def Tech and the best-selling album was also by Japan’s Ulfuls.”
Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in the statement: “iTunes has sold twice as many songs in just four days as all the other online music services in Japan sell in one month.” Most of the songs cost 150 yen, but some go for 200 yen.
Given the popularity of iTunes and Macs, and scarcity of iPods (the Zen and Creative digital music players seem much more popular here) I’m wondering how well the Apple made MP3 players will fare in this market. Additionally, it would be interesting to see how many songs were sold to residents of Japan from the US based iTunes site in the last year.
Apple is going head to head against Sony in Japan, and although there are more Sony Digital Music players sold in the country, with good marketing iPods may be the Mister Donuts of the Japanese digital music market. Needless to say, Sony is not happy “About 15 Japanese record labels have signed up to iTunes but Sony Music Entertainment – Sony’s music division – has yet to register. (from the BBC)”
