What can you get for ¥100 in Japan? Well they have “¥100 Stores” like those “$1 Stores” in North America and “$10 Stores” in Hong Kong. They also have vending machines dotted the streets of Japan selling various things from cold drinks to hot noodles for ¥100 – ¥500. Now you can add a track from Ayumi Hamasaki’s latest album to that list.
Today Apple officially opened the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) for Japan with localized content and artists. Charging a price of ¥100 – ¥200 per song as compare to the 99¢ price tag they have on the iTMS-US. At this price point will it implies that tracks for the future iTMS-HK will cost HKD10.00? Hmm…
You can read my thoughts on this subject from my Weblog article on July 17, 2005. As anticipated then, all initial Japanese contents are from Avex, the Japanese based music publisher.
I hope iTMS will take a page from its launch in the UK and take over the rest of Asia like it did in Europe.
Along with today’s Apple announcement, Apple also announced that Nissan, Mazda and Daihatsu are joining BMW, MINI, smart, Alfa Romeo, Volvo, Volkswagen and Ferrari to include an iPod integration with their car stereos. I wonder why the American car manufactures are noticeably missing from this list.