Mycokemusic reacts to iTunes by still claiming Europe's #1

June 20, 2004

With the recent launch of iTunes, Napster and various OD2 based services in Europe, Coca-Cola's music download service Mycokemusic.com still claims to still be Europe's leading music download store. Their website received over 2.5 million visitors in the past two months selling around a Â½ million songs.

However, Mycokemusic is by no means the cheapest around at 99p (~$ 1.83) on averge per song; 20p per song more expensive than iTunes in the UK. Unlike iTunes, Mycokemusic does allow consumers to listen to sample full tracks at 1p per song. The BPI is pleased with Coca-Cola's online store success in that consumers are gradually taking the legal approach to downloading music. Quakester2000 submitted the following news via our news submit :

Coca-Cola's music download site Mycokemusic.com has reacted to the launch of Apple's iTunes with claims it is still Europe's biggest online store.

The site, which launched in January, said in a statement it had attracted more than 2.5 million visitors in the last two months and sold 500,000 songs.

Apple launched its iTunes music store in the UK, France and Germany on Tuesday, offering 700,000 songs.

Mycokemusic.com charges on average 99p per track, while iTunes charges 79p.

Coca Cola spokesman Rafael McDonnell said: "Research showed us that downloading music was going be a huge change in the way that consumers access music and we were ahead of the curve with the introduction of Mycokemusic.com."

As iTunes has only launched about a week ago, it will take some time for iTunes to gain popularity. If iTunes started at the beginning of the year, I could easily see it being the market leader by now considering how well it is still doing in the US.

Coca cola does have one major competitive advantage over the other music download stores in that it sells soft drinks in nearly every convenience store, vending machine, fast food restaurant and take-away around. This means it has no problem getting its online store announced just by advertising it on its soft drink cups, bottles and cans.

Feel free do discuss and find out more about online music stores on our Music Downloads, P2P & Legal Issues Forum.

Source: BBC Music Entertainment News