Apple has launched its iconic digital iTunes store in India, Russia, South Africa, Turkey and 52 other countries across the world.
Indian consumers will now be able to purchase and rent Bollywood movies and songs from the iTunes Store. The digital store will also offer songs and movies in Tamil and Telugu as well.
Buyers can purchase a single song within a price range of Rs 12 to Rs 15, and a whole album will be priced in the range of Rs 70 to Rs 150. Bollywood movies can also be rented for Rs 80 to Rs 120 and can be purchased for Rs 190 to Rs 490, reported IBN Live.
Apple iTunes Store has listed a limited number of artists. Songs by popular Bollywood artists like RD Burman, Asha Bhosle, Jagjit Singh and contemporary artists like AR Rahman, Shaan, Sonu Nigam, Shreya Ghoshal, Mika Singh and others will be available. The digital store is expected to add more in the coming days.
The launch of Apple store in India is an attempt to curb music piracy in the country's multi-crore music industry. According to an Airtel Mobitude Survey, Indian consumers clocked 150 million music downloads through mobile phones in 2011.
Considering these sky-rocketing statistics, the Indian music industry would have easily lost crores in royalties due to illegal music websites which offer free downloads.
Apple iTunes store offers legitimate music downloads and in the process helps the Indian music industry as well as buyers in getting good quality music for a reasonable price.
Currently FlipKart (Flyte) and Nokia Music store (Ovi music) are the two popular online stores which sell digital music and movies in India.
The prices of music and movies depend on the star cast. Bigger the artist costlier would be the download.
