Apple iTunes Radio Australia and New Zealand Rollouts; Beating Pandora at their Game
Apple Inc. (AAPL) iTunes radio will rollout in Australia and New Zealand, beating Pandora ahead of their game.
Pandora had long been operating in Australia and New Zealand, but it forged agreements for international rights with various record companies, including Universal Music Group - limiting services to Australia and New Zealand.
According to sources that Bloomberg refused to identify, iTune Radio is targeted to be released in early 2014.
In September, Apple started its neck-to-neck competition against Pandora when it launched the iTunes Radio with the iOS 7. In a span of five days after the Apple iOS 7 launches, there were already 11 million listeners tuning in to iTunes Radio.
Apple is set to replicate the successful strategy they had with its launch of the iTunes music store - first launching in the U.S. and then launching to other countries.
In an interview with Associated Press, Eddy Cue, Apple senior vice president for iTunes, said that Apple is targeted to rollout the iTunes radio to more than 100 countries in the near future. As part of its strategic advertisement, Apple had already been in talks with McDonald's Corp., Nissan Motor Co., PepsiCo Inc. and Procter & Gamble Co.
Pandora, on the other hand, was not threatened by Apple's expansion.
At a press conference in September, Pandora founder Tim Westergren said that they believe "iTunes Radio will have a modest impact."
"They launched with a huge marketing budget and no commercials, and Pandora's market share only continued to grow. Our hope is just that over time, as the benefits of our service become more and more obvious and apparent, that artists in particular will agitate and help propel this adoption in other countries," Westergren stated during the press conference.
Meanwhile, market reports showed that two companies had a decrease with its market share as the market closes.
Apple fell 1.4 per cent to $480.94 at the close in New York. Apple shares had reportedly declined 9.6 per cent for the first three quarters of 2013.
Pandora also suffered a decline of 7.8 per cent to $24.26 in just a matter of two weeks.