Music retailers HMV are looking to rattle Apple with the announcement of their new hmvdigital download store which will offer 10 million songs with every UK Top 40 single costing just 40p each.
Their new Mac and Windows friendly service plays ball with iTunes and Windows Media Player and serves up 320kbps encoded MP3 files significantly cheaper than Apple’s service, which typically charges around 99p and 79p for chart hits, with digital singles (which include extra tracks and remixes) priced around £1.49.
Albums for under a fiver
Powered by 7digital – which HMV bought half of last September – the new service will see album prices slashed too, with hmvdigital offering chart albums at £4.99 compared to iTunes prices which range from £5.99 to £8.99, £7.99 and £5.99. Individual album tracks, however, remains the same as iTunes at 99p each.
Sarah Hughes, HMV’s head of online and digital bigged up hmvdigital, saying it was “a world class download store that reflects both HMV’s music retailing heritage and our strategy to be a broad-based entertainment brand.”
“With so many innovative and wonderful features, it offers a truly intuitive and engaging customer experience that I very much hope will lead to HMV becoming a bigger player in the burgeoning digital market,” said purred.
[Guardian]
