Itunes go online in Japan

Apple has sold more than 500 million songs in 19 countries since it introduced iTunes in the US.

Apple Computer Inc. launched its iTunes online music store in Japan on Thursday, bringing its market-leading download service to the world's second-largest music market by album sales.

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Apple has sold more than 500 million songs in 19 countries since it introduced iTunes in the United States over two years ago. While iTunes by itself is not viewed as a big money maker for Apple, it has helped drive sales of its wildly popular iPod portable music player.

The California-based company said iTunes would charge 150 yen ($1.35) each for 90 percent of its songs and 200 yen for the other 10 percent, undercutting some existing services such as Sony Corp.'s Mora, which charges 210 yen per song.

At least 15 Japanese companies including Avex Group Holdings Inc. will provide music for the iTunes store, Apple said. Columbia Music Entertainment Inc. said on Thursday it would also provide songs.

Apple has sold more than 500 million songs in 19 countries since it introduced iTunes in the United States over two years ago.

"We've got a lot of Japanese content on the store and we'll be adding even more as the months go on," Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a packed news conference in Tokyo. "We think it's going to set the standard for online music pricing in Japan."

Apple has sold about 22 million iPods since their introduction in October 2001, making it by far the most widely used digital music player in a market researcher In-Stat expects to nearly quadruple to 104 million units a year by 2009.

Analysts have said the lack of an iTunes online store aimed at users in Japan was a major reason behind Sony's securing the top market share for flash memory-based players in the Japanese market in recent months, overtaking the iPod shuffle.

Apple retains the top spot overall in Japan thanks to brisk sales of its hard-drive based players. It controls about 36 percent of the market, ahead of Sony at 22 percent.

Jobs said the iTunes service in Japan would also offer podcasts, which are sound files, and audio content such as radio shows.