Apple Takes iTunes Store to Asia

HONG KONG: Apple is expanding its iTunes Store to a number of Asian markets, including Hong Kong, the Philippines and Malaysia, allowing consumers to rent or purchase movies from several Hollywood studios.

Apple had previously only made the App Store available in the much of region, offering the iTunes Store solely in Japan, Australia and New Zealand. As of this week, the iTunes Store, featuring movies and music, is available in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

"This is a fantastic development for consumers in Asia," said Manoj Menon, partner and Southeast Asia managing director for Frost & Sullivan. "Apple’s growth in these markets was predominantly fueled by the hardware sales. This announcement will help Apple leverage the completeness of its ecosystem a lot better in these markets."

Menon, added, "This may also be a very positive development towards helping the industry fight piracy in several of these countries. The availability of content in attractively packaged and priced formats will encourage and enable several users to stay away from piracy. This is a very powerful development for the industry and the ecosystem."

Not included in the rollout are Asia’s biggest markets: China, India and Indonesia.