Samsung Apes iTunes, Enters Music Download Biz


Samsung will unveil an iTunes-like application and on-line music store, modeling itself on Apple's successful venture, TechTree reports.

The company is in talks with partners, the story says, and it will deliver a digital media application, which is likely to resemble iTunes.

Samsung is one of Apple's major partners - and competitors - and supplies Cupertino with flash memory for its iPod Nano music player.

Although Samsung also competes directly with Apple's iPod hardware, its music players have not taken off, and even in its South Korean homeland, iPod dominates and has a significant price advantage, despite the Korean company taking losses on its MP3 players by initiating deep competitive price cuts. Samsung has also released a slew of MP3 player models this year, covering most of the market spread, and will reel off several more new models through mid-2006.

Choi Ji-Sung, Samsung's head of digital media, said at last Friday's press conference that Samsung would match iPod once the company got its own on-line music store up and running.

Analysis: Samsung has left their run a little late. And if they choose a subscription model, that's a recipe for disaster. And Apple has become so embedded in these markets, it's difficult - right now - to conceive of a major consumer shift in loyalties.