Much of Latin America can now access Apple Inc.’s iTunes Store as the company launched its music store today in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.
The iTunes Store in Latin America offers music from major labels EMI Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music, and thousands of independent labels. All music on iTunes comes in iTunes Plus, Apple’s DRM-free format with high-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings.
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In Brazil, Apple said that most songs are priced at 99 cents and most albums at U.S. $9.99. The catalog accounts over 20 million songs, including local artists such as Ivete Sangalo, Marisa Monte and the digital debut of Roberto Carlos’ catalog.
Apple also unveiled iTunes Match, a new service that upgrades music to iTunes Plus when matched to the more than 20 million songs in the iTunes Store catalog. ITunes in the Cloud is available for free in Brazil and Latin America, and iTunes Match is available for a $24.99 annual fee in Brazil.
Globally, the App Store offers about 500,000 apps to consumers in 123 countries, reaching hundreds of millions of iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users. Apple estimates that customers have downloaded more than 18 billion apps to date.
