It's War: Amazon Drops Price Of New Song Downloads; Will Apple Follow?
April 30, 2011
Score one for Amazon.com in its battle against Apple. In a move that clearly benefits customers, the online retailer has setup a new page on its Amazon MP3 store, appropriately named, “The Best New Songs Only 69¢.” With it, has Amazon started a pricing war?
Amazon.com, which in March debuted its new cloud music locker service, is trying its best to chip way at Apple’s control of the digital music download business. Its latest move is to drop the price of the top-selling songs to half that of what Apple charges for the same songs in iTunes.
Among the songs currently available for $.69 are Rihanna’s "S&M", Jennifer Lopez’s "On The Floor", and Katy Perry’s "E.T. (feat. Kanye West)." These same songs sell for $1.29 in iTunes.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Apple controls 70 percent of the digital download business vs. Amazon.com’s 10 percent. This comes despite Apple’s decision last year to increase the price of new releases to $1.29 from $.99.
It will be interesting to see if Amazon.com’s latest move levels the playing field a bit.
What do you think? Leave your comments below.
