Appleinsider.com is reporting that Napster, the online music subscription service, has launched a new music download store to directly challenge the dominance of Apple’s iTunes. Napster claims their new MP3 store is the largest in the world, featuring more than 6 million songs.
The downloadable songs will be provided in a high quality MP3 format, WITHOUT any digital rights management, meaning that the MP3s can be shared, copied or transferred to any iPod, iPhone or other multimedia player.
While Apple’s iTunes offers roughly the same amount of tracks online (about 6 million), iTunes uses digital rights management for most of its tracks, and distributes songs in Apple’s proprietary AAC format. Only a small portion of iTunes songs can be purchased without copy restrictions, such as those by the EMI record label.
By way of contrast, Napster’s new MP3 store offers all of its music in unprotected MP3 format, leading the company to claim they are the largest MP3 store in the world. Prices for the downloadable music tracks are currently set at $.99 for MP3 singles, and $9.95 for most albums. This is roughly the same as iTunes pricing structure, so there’s no real difference there.
Napster’s MP3s will also be available at the higher quality 256kbps format; the higher resolution results in clearer, more “audiophile friendly” MP3s. Additionally, Napster’s MP3 download store will include high-resolution digital images of album art and liner notes.
Of course, what Napster is attempting to do here isn’t new; the Amazon.com MP3 store has been gradually gaining popularity since its launch early last year. And like Napster, the Amazon store offers most of its downloadable music in unprotected MP3 format. Amazon also offers higher bit rate 320kbps MP3s for its tracks, resulting in even better audio quality then Napster’s 256kbps MP3s.
Where Napster may have the edge is in the sheer number of MP3s available within their new service. Even Amazon.com’s MP3 store cannot rival the 6 million+ individual tracks available on Napster.
But even though Napster and Amazon.com are both directly competing with iTunes, Apple’s downloadable music store shows no signs of weakening. iTunes recently replaced Wal-Mart as the largest single retailer of music in the United States, with over 19% of the overall market. iTunes online statistics are even better: the company has greater than 85% of the market share of downloadable music, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
So Napster certainly has some serious competition in the downloadable music market, but with a huge library of tracks available in unprotected MP3 format, they may just be able to unseat iTunes from their dominant position in the marketplace. I wouldn’t bet on it happening quickly though: iTunes continues to gain popularity, even when other segments of the US economy appear stagnant.
I always marvel…daily at the amazing new devices that take over our market. I imagine little men staying up all nite making new discoveries…I mostly love it! carol ww.carolstanley1.com
Comment by carol stanley — May 23, 2008 @ 1:22 pm