Amazon MP3 goes live in the UK (with £3 albums from Take That, Coldplay, Kings of Leon…)
Amazon has stealthily launched its MP3 Store in the UK this morning, with some major, major reductions on frontline albums. For example, Take That’s The Circus, which came out this week, is being sold for £3, as are the most recent albums from Kings Of Leon, Coldplay and Girls Aloud.
On an individual track basis, the store has variable pricing, with songs starting at 59p, but other categories for tracks costing 60p-69p, 70p-79p, and over 80p. Albums are more variable, although £6.49 appears to be one popular price point for new albums.
There’s some indie-sized holes in the catalogue at the time of writing – no Oasis apart from the spoken-word Wibbling Rivalry EP, no Arctic Monkeys, a single live track from Franz Ferdinand. Interestingly, the same artists that were missing from Nokia’s Comes With Music when it launched in the UK recently. It’s not like there are no indie artists on the store, but the lack of these big-name UK acts is something that Amazon will want to patch as soon as possible.
However, Amazon’s launch into the UK market is a big deal for the industry, and from our initial tests (our boss Paul Brindley just bought the Take That album) the user experience is very slick indeed, including one-click purchasing for existing Amazon customers.
The launch comes at a great time for digital, too. In the UK, high-street chain Woolworths (which recently went into administration) has 10% of the CD market, while its EUK distribution arm supplies CDs to the likes of Asda, Zavvi and Sainsbury’s. So just at the time when there’s a bottleneck in physical supply, Amazon is weighing into the UK digital market.
We think Apple knew this was coming too – it’s made a bunch of albums available for under £4 today in a limited price promotion, including the likes of Oasis and Fleet Foxes.
Tags: amazon MP3 store, UK
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Wow. This is right – I’ve just checked. Why isn’t this anywhere else on the web?
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
[...] prices start at 59-pence, new albums lurk above or below the £6.49 mark, MusicAlly reports in its UK first look at the service, praising its ease-of-use and integration across the rest of the Amazon [...]
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Great stuff from amazon. They need to promote it more as no one even knwos they offer this. Wheres the push?
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:15 pm
[...] here. During the summer many thought the store would launch in September, now Amazon did a “soft launch” – meaning they are not really making a lot of noise about [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
[...] We think Apple knew this was coming too – it’s made a bunch of albums available for under £4 today in a limited price promotion. Amazon MP3 source [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
[...] digital music stores are scrambling to get their responses to the UK launch of Amazon’s MP3 Store yesterday. We’ve already covered 7digital’s reaction, but now eMusic’s European [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
[...] Link: Amazon MP3 (via Music Ally) [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
[...] in the UK with the most recent albums from Kings Of Leon, Coldplay and Girls Aloud being sold for £3. This is another blow to [...]
December 5th, 2008 at 8:51 am
[...] in the UK with the most recent albums from Kings Of Leon, Coldplay and Girls Aloud being sold for £3. This is another blow to [...]
December 15th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
[...] alarido por parte da empresa de comércio electrónico a loja de MP3 da Amazon chegou finalmente às terras de Sua Majestade, mais de um ano depois do lançamento nos Estados Unidos. Tal [...]
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Amazon MP3 is a digital music store owned and operated by Amazon.co.uk. In 2008, it became the first music store to sell music without digital rights management from the four major music labels , as well as many independents. Amazon.co.uk’s Music store has over two million music items for you to browse. All tracks are sold in 256 kilobits-per-second variable bitrates MP3 format without per-customer watermarking or DRM. Licensing agreements with recording companies restrict the countries in which music can be sold: Amazon offers customers with the latest album and music it is being sold cheap price compared with other competitors. The search music is important for online music sellers, the Amazon’s recommendation system can make search easier, for example, the categories of fending music is well displayed its by features, price, genre and award and event. In addition, preview track is available before download music, which users or customers can listen. The installation and MP3 downloader are easier to find, which is just situated near ‘1-click’ button. This make customers promote download and install the Amazon’s MP3 downloader. These factors can be attracted for customers. Amazon.com only sells music to US customers while Amazon.co.uk only sells music to UK customers.
Apple’s iTunes music store faced a new challenger as Amazon introduced a rival online MP3 service with knockdown prices. Unlike Apple’s offering, which limits the devices that tracks can be played on and the number of copies that can be made, Amazon offer customers music with no restrictions under “digital rights management”. Julian Monaghan, head of music at Amazon, said: “There are a large number of consumers who aren’t in the digital market yet. We want to make it as easy as possible. We now have digital, vinyl and CDs, so consumers only need to come to one place. “We know that there will be a lot of people given MP3 players for Christmas and the site will experience a lot of traffic.”
Rivals said that Amazon offered inferior sound quality to cut download times and data-transfer costs. Ben Drury, chief executive of 7digital.com, the first online retailer in Europe to offer DRM-free MP3s from all the main labels, said: “Our sole aim is to provide consumers with a first-rate music delivery service because that’s what we are and what we know. Their MP3 downloads are only 256kps quality so they are not delivering the high-quality 320kps MP3s, unlike 7digital.com.”
But he added: “It’s great that general retailers like Amazon clearly recognise the importance of digital music for consumers and the MP3 universal music format which works on all devices. Amazon’s entry into the market is good news for the digital music consumer and will accelerate the migration from physical format to digital. This is another . . . blow for iTunes.”
April 28th, 2009 at 10:49 am
[...] the UK was launched on Wednesday of last week without any press although British-based music blog MusicAlly was the first to spot [...]