Amazon MP3 looks to expand outside of US

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

January 28, 2008, 10:31 AM

The online retailer said over the weekend that it would begin to roll out its music store worldwide during this year in an effort to more broadly compete with market-leader iTunes.

Amazon launched its MP3 store in September of last year, and has since expanded to include music from all four major labels as well as 33,000 independent labels. The company says that it has the broadest DRM-free offering of any service.

Consumers would have the choice of about 3.3 million tracks from the service, which would play on any device including the ubiquitous iPod. Tracks retail for 89 to 99 cents, with albums ranging from $5.99 to $9.99.

Tracks would be encoded at 256 Kbps, which many refer to as "near-CD quality."

The company has declined to cite any specific timeline for the rollout, or which countries would be seeing the store first. However, the company said it had received thousands of requests from consumers outside of the US to launch the service worldwide.

"We are excited to tell those customers today that Amazon MP3 is going international this year," Amazon's digital music head Bill Car said in a statement.