Amazon MP3 launch provokes price storm.

Mixed reaction as digital store offers cheap chart hits

By Ben Cardew

AMAZON IS CONFIDENTLY PREDICTING that the UK launch of its MP3 store will help to grow the British digital music market, but it has already stirred up a hornet's nest with industry accusations of aggressive price cutting.

The company last week launched its MP3 store to the UK, offering more than 3m tracks from all four majors and leading independents as 256kbps MP3 downloads.

The UK launch - it rolled out in the US at the end of 2007 - was marked by price offers that saw some of the year's biggest albums, including Take That's The Circus and Kings Of Leon's Only By The Night, available to download for just #3. A number of tracks, including The Killers' Human and Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy, were on sale for 59p.

The company's UK head of music buying Julian Monaghan says that the low pricing - which comes in the week that The Circus sold more than 300,000 units in just four days - is intended to "make some noise" among the retailer's existing customers.

"Our store is the easiest store to use and you can download MP3 tracks within seconds. We want to make it the most customer-centric of all sites," he says. "They are looking for the competitive prices they can't get elsewhere."