Apple launched its iTunes music and movie store around 12 years ago, and ever since, its fans have been waiting for its arrival in Latin America.  The good news is that the iTunes Store has finally gone live in Brazil and 15 other Latin American countries, as the region’s consumer digital content market takes off.  This first non U.S. roll-out in Brazil is priced at $24.99, and brings 20 million songs at $0.99 and albums at $9.99.  One thing that you might have observed here is that the prices are in American Dollar, and customers need to pay in USD currency only. This is one of the major limitations of this roll-out, at least for the time being.

Taking a look at the Brazilian market as a whole, around 60 percent of digital sales are from subscriptions.  Brazil is already a mature market, as there are several other cloud-based music subscription services available there.   Nokia already has a 10 percent share in Brazil, and there’s growth from unlimited subscription music services by the Telefonica-owned Terra.  So Apple becomes a late entrant in the market, especially where subscription operators like Spotify, Rdio, Mog and Rhapsody are trying to challenge the dominant iTunes model on a global scale.

RaRa for music

Another update from the cloud based music industry includes a new service: rara.com. Rara is a standalone company by Omnifone, a cloud-based music company that powers services like Sony’s cloud-based music offering, as well as several carrier-led music services. Its approach of reaching mass market appeal is to represent itself as the cheapest, easiest-to-use music streaming service out there.

Rara will kick off with a catalog of 10 million tracks covering music from all the major music labels and several small ones, and launches in some 16 markets today, including the UK and U.S., and will be in 23 markets by the end of this week, including China, altogether covering some 900 million users.  It is offering only ad-free options, with a $4.99 per month service letting users stream songs, and a $9.99 per month option letting users store tracks on their devices.  Both services come with three-month trials for either 99 cents or 1.99 per month.  Rara is partnering with all major music labels, and “a host of” smaller labels, and is working only  through labels: no deals to let unsigned artists self-publish on the service so far, so no YouTube-like viral sensations will be coming out of the service.