Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) is keeping tight-lipped on reports it will launch its MP3 music store in the UK in October. NMA also said MySpace (NSDQ: NWS) Music, the music sales backbone for which is powered by Amazon in the US, will arrive here early in 2009. But Amazon told me: “We don’t talk about what we might do in the future. We put out a press release at the beginning of the year saying that the international rollout of MP3 would begin this year.”
The eventual launch here will pose a challenge not just to iTunes, whose DRM-free repertoire is lagging, but to homegrown 7Digital, whose unique selling point, like Amazon’s, is its entirely MP3 catalogue from all four majors and other labels. 7Digital’s press event yesterday, trumpeting this fact, may now be seen as an attempt to mark itself out in a space that will soon be joined by the US online books giant, as well the other retailers who have come to their senses on the DRM issue.
Another Amazon product still unavailable on these shores is Kindle. The company said: “Kindle is only available on Amazon.com and only works in the US because the wireless functionality doesn’t work outside the US – beyond the US, we’ve not made any announcement about the future.”