Amazon MP3 Store to go International This Year

Since Amazon launched their online music store last September, they’ve done a great job of getting the attention they need, from both consumers and record companies alike. They now carry music from all four of the major labels and offer over 3 million songs, given them a steep advantage over iTunes and other competitors.

As it stands though, the service is available in the US only, but later this year, the service will be available internationally. Once that happens, Amazon’s name should become synonymous with online music sales rather quickly. They will have more music than anyone and will sell each track for market-standard prices… sounds good to me. As a Linux user, I don’t have much choice with regards to downloadable music, so I am looking forward to being able to use this service myself. They seem to be doing everything right. I just hope it keeps that way.

Amazon currently provides 3.3M songs from 270,000+ artists, encoded at 256kbps, and priced anywhere between 89 and 99 cents each. Things are similar with iTunes Plus, Apple’s DRM-free music collection: songs are 99 cents each and encoded at 256kbps. However, Apple only provides “up to 2 million iTunes Plus songs” in comparison to Amazon’s 3.3M, giving the latter company a substantial edge with its scope.

Source: TechCrunch