Napster UK

Napster became the first of the larger American online music stores to launch in Europe, as they debuted their store in the UK on Thursday. They had been in a headlong race with Apple, MusicMatch, and other services to see who would be first to crack the potentially lucrative European market. Downloads will cost a hefty 1.09 per track (about US$1.93), or 0.99 for monthly subscribers, who also get access to unlimited streaming for 9.99 per month. ...

The European market may be a tough nut to crack for Napster. UK online music store OD2 stole some of Napster's spotlight by announcing a price reduction to 0.50 for many tracks supplied to its largest retail partners (Coca-Cola and Virgin, among others), and other European stores are up and running. Also, for the time being, Napster's European presence will be confined to the British Isles as they continue to negotiate agreements with labels and publishers in other countries on the Continent.

Whither Apple? They continue to be close-lipped about the exact timing of their European debut, reiterating their desire to make the iTunes Music Store available to European consumers by year end. Does their being beat across the Atlantic by one of their US rivals put them in a tougher position? Not likely. Their strategy of closely tying iTMS to the iPod has paid off with the leading market share for both music downloads and mp3 player sales, and the heavily-in-demand iPod mini is not slated to be available in Europe until sometime in July. Given its current dominance in the US market and that the new iPod division and iTMS are both money-makers for Apple, it can afford to be move more slowly into Europe. Napster, on the other hand, is still in the red, according to Roxio CEO Christopher Gorog, and is counting on a fast rollout through Europe to help change that. Ars technica