Apple Music plays in China, likely to face competition

Apple Inc has rolled out Apple Music, iTunes Movies and iBooks to China-based users, it announced in a press release today. Starting today, the company is offering a three-month trial membership of Apple Music, after which a 10 RMB/month subscription fee will apply.

“Customers in China love the App Store and have made it our largest market in the world for app downloads,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “One of the top requests has been more great content and we’re thrilled to bring music, movies and books to China, curated by a local team of experts.” 

For the first time, Chinese users will have access to Apple’s entertainment ecosystem with music, movies and books “right at their fingertips”. Keeping in mind the preferences of Chinese population, Apple Music in the Chinese mainland features music from artists including Eason Chan, Li Ronghao, JJ Lin and G.E.M. A wide range of international artists including Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and many more are also available.

On iTunes Store, users can also rent or purchase movies from a great selection of Chinese studios and Hollywood blockbusters, in addition to enjoying paid and free books from the iBooks Store.

However, the Cupertino company may find China difficult to please. CNBC reports that Apple’s music streaming service may be a tough sell in the country. Also, with its late entry it now faces tough competition from Tencent’s QQ and Baidu music.

"China is more of a difficult market to penetrate, especially for global companies. China tends to prefer local companies," Karissa Chua, a consumer electronics analyst at Euromonitor International told CNBC. She expects language differences may prove a sticking point on music offerings. But she added, "one good strategy was to launch [the service] in both Apple iPhone and Android," as Android smartphones are more popular in China, which is the world's largest smartphone market.