Apple Inc. announced yesterday that it is launching its iTunes store to 56 more countries including India, Turkey, South Africa and 53 other nations. Apple surely has taken this step towards expanding its reach and international presence. The company has made the major move in launching its iTunes store to India having the population of 120 billion and Indonesia(240 million population) which is the company’s widest expansion till date by hitting a combined audience of 140 billion at the same time.
This brings the total to whooping 119 where iTunes store is available with iTunes in the cloud and music tracks for free. Out of 56 countries, four countries India, Indonesia,Turkey and Russia will also get iTunes movie acquisitions and tariffs service.
The store will feature world-famous tracks from local artists and international artists such as Taylor Swift, ColdPlay along with some highly popular classical tracks from Yo Yo Ma and Lang. Music lovers in these countries can download tracks from a collection of more than 20 million songs and some high definition movies from the most popular Hollywood movie studios like 20th centurary fox, warner bros and many others can also be downloaded from the store.
In June, 2012 Apple launched its iTunes store in 12 Asian markets including China, Hong Kong but Indonesia and India were missing from the list despite of having huge population and potential market share. Now, the company has grabbed this opportunity in these two highly potential Internet markets as they both rank in Facebook’s Top 5.
Music will be available for Rs.7-15($.14) and albums for Rs.70($1.29) in India while it has been reported that music tracks and albums in Indonesia will be cheaper than US.
In early 2012, Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement that Apple’s low marketshare in India and India’s “multilayer distribution” system would make them to give preference to other potential markets over India. But, with this first step taken by Apple, Indian fans of Apple devices would be only a step closer to a greater Apple presence there.
Launching Apple iTunes store in Russia is considered as a first major step towards an Apple Store in the country and the company is said to have discovered market opportunities in Indonesia and India. It has been reported that since June,2012 Apple Inc. have been recruiting manpower for retail-related positions in Indonesia, while the company is aiming to move further to its reseller business model in India, but strict Indian laws is obstructing Apple for making such a move.
While Apple’s official announcement statement does not include a full list of the 56 nations where iTunes store has been made available, but MacRumors has prepared its own list, which includes Latin America and the Caribbean areas such as Anguilla, Antigua,Trinidad and Tobago and Dominica,European countries such as Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus. Asia Pacific nations such as Kyrgyzstan, Micronesia, Mongolia and Tajikistan. Africa, the Middle East countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain,Oman and Saudia Arabia. Some of these nations already had an access to an App Store earlier but access to music store would be a totally new experience to the users of these countries.
Clearly Apple has been affected by Samsung’s sale figures. Expanding its reach, Apple tries to capture the markets of the Subcontinent and Russia. It’s like an ant trying to play with an elephant. Let’s see?