By Jo Best, 8 November 2004 13:53
NEWS Supermarket giant Tesco is hoping to take a slice of Apple's pie with the launch of a new music download service.
The service will launch as part of Tesco.com and will come packing 500,000 tracks which can be downloaded for 79p each while albums will cost £7.99. The service itself will be provided by Cable & Wireless.
Tesco is already one of the largest music vendors in the UK and is making a move into the download space as part of its strategy to give its customers an online version of all its bricks-and-mortar services and a desire to get involved in the expanding market. Analyst house JupiterResearch predicts that by 2009, digital music in Europe will be worth 836m.
The songs will be available in the Windows Media Audio (WMA) format which the company says is designed to give consumers the widest possible choice of devices to play their music on - over 70 music players are now compatible with the WMA format.
However, choosing the WMA format will shut out around half of all music players, given that Apple's iPod - which won't play the Windows-format songs - currently has over 50 per cent of the music player market according to Apple and over 90 per cent according to some analysts.
Jon Higgins, head of e-commerce development at Tesco, said the music market won't always favour the Cupertino-based company.
"The iPod may have 50 per cent of the music player market but I don't think it will stay that way," he said, adding that Tesco was hoping to use its retail history to gain market share.
There are, nonetheless, some hints that Tesco is hoping for a repeat of the iTunes strategy. While the iTunes music store is renowned for not making Apple a great deal of money, the subsequent sales of the iPod make the whole enterprise worthwhile.
Tesco already sells a selection of digital music players from manufacturers including iRiver and Creative - all of which can play WMA files. iPods are noticeably absent from the site.
With more and more companies joining in the music download fray - Virgin, Sony, Coke and Oxfam to name a few - Higgins said he believes the market is reaching its saturation point.
"I really don't think it will be boom and bust," he said, "but I don't think there's room for many more players in the market".
The site itself, tescodownloads.com, gives a hint at its future direction, according to Higgins - with the generically-named Tesco offshoot aiming to move into offering music videos and eventually full-length feature film downloads.
"In a few years' time, when internet infrastructure improves... I see a time when we'll sell music and video - DVD quality films," he said. "Music is the first step into the market. The store isn't a music store, it's a downloads store."
Comments
There are 10 comments. Join the discussion
1. johnny Socko
for now if it does not support the iPod, who cares? iPod is the Windows of MP3 players.
2. Tesco
Doesn't surprise me one bit
3. Notten Klined
As iPod sales grow, download services like this one will fail.
4. matthew duffield
you should put up an adventure park for the childern aged 15 and under
5. john heridge
Not sure - It is a single format device - and Apple have a great history of starting the market then getting crushed (Newton, Duo, etc) - MS have an open std and there are much cooler devices now - Rio Carbon, Nevo, etc that work in this way. I think the site is good simple to purchase no need to login, download client, etc just straight in an buy + the ONLY site where I could find a good amount of UK Indie stuff (Pixies etc), the download speed was really fast much quicker than Napster or Woolworths. They could improve the downloading feature - track by track was ok for a few but 20 tracks was painful, and maybe offer switch as payment, but I give it 8 out of 10 for now - and I am sure it will get better
6. George Gallagher
Missing the Ipod is a big turn off.
I like Tesco, buy a lot of stuff there, it is my online grocer : there I can choose the brand of coffee <I> want. Why does Tesco want to force me NOT to choose my brand of MP3 player ?
all we need is a MP3 format. Sure I can capture the stream and MP3 it here but why would I accept that loss of quality and have the hassle to buy from Tesco ?
Sorry Tesco you will have to try harder to get my custom.
7. Nick O'Reilly
You *can* use your Ipod with the Tesco downloads service if you use the "burn audio CD" option to create a CD then transfer that in through the iTunes software. You're allowed up to 3 "burns" per tune - and you can always make CD backup arrangements to overcome even that count..!
I prefer the WM9 format to MP3 anyway as the quality/size ratio is much better.
Note that Tesco call it "downloads" service not "audio" or "music" service - I can foresee movie and music video downloads from Tesco before too much longer.
8. Mark James
Its not an issue of Tesco not supporting the iPod, it is the issue of Apple using a proprietary format for music that is incompatible with anyone else, and they will not allow others to use it.
Basically look at it like this, iTunes does not support any other players, only the iPod. Music can not be sold in MP3 format because it does not support DRM, this means that record labels will not allow this format.
9. Daz
Tesco Downloads is okay until something goes wrong. I downloaded a few tracks, but with one the Digital Rights Management was screwed (the rest were fine). They took a week to reply, and then it was a standard response (check the list of compatible players, check it supports WMA, use Media Player 10) which failed to acknowledge the info I'd given them. I mailed back again, telling them again that everything met their criteria and that it was just one track out of a few that didn't work... and they sent me the same pointless response again. Two weeks on I still can't play that track on my device. Great service... not.
10. Rebecca Snelling
I have found Tesco downloads a real pig to use. It's temperamental and my successes have been far outweighed by the failures. It's a waste of time and money - I'm sick of re-downloading and the customer service is appalling. The whole thing is putting me off portable players - in principle they are a fantastic idea. Unfortunately, they haven't lived up to the hype at all so far.