Coke opens country's biggest digital music store

Legal downloadable music is finally making a big splash in New Zealand, albeit through an unlikely source.

Coca-Cola yesterday opened CokeTunes, the country's largest legal digital music download store by far, with more than 500,000 tracks by 12,000 artists.

"We saw the opportunity and we think it's going to be something of growing interest," said Alison Sykora, spokeswoman for Coca-Cola Oceania.

The beverage giant has so far signed up three major international labels - Universal, Warner and EMI - and is talking with BMG.

Tracks from artists including Savage, Black-Eyed Peas, Green Day, Eminem and 50 Cent are available.

Local label Festival Mushroom Records is also on board.

CokeTunes is offering single tracks for $1.75 each, with albums starting at $18. Customers need to purchase credit on the site - www.cokefridge.co.nz - which can then be used to buy music.

The CokeTunes' catalogue dwarfs that of existing download stores. Digirama, now the second-largest, offers only 73,237 tracks. But co-founder Shaun Davis says he has just signed a major label that will greatly increase the site's offerings. He declined to name the label.

Coke's site significantly undercuts Digirama, which offers individual songs for $1.99 and albums starting at $19.99. Apple's iTunes, the world's most popular site for legal downloads, charges 99USc for individual tracks.

Mr Davis questioned whether CokeTunes would make money based on those costs. "They won't be making much money," he said. "They won't be [profitable] at that price."

Coke's forays into music are seen by internet experts as image and marketing strategies, rather than profit-making endeavours. However, Coke's move into the New Zealand market does beat iTunes to the punch. Apple spokesman Steve Ford would not comment on when, or even if, iTunes would open in New Zealand.

A big strike against the Coke service (and other download sites such as Digirama) is the inability to play its tracks on Apple's iPod. The tracks are in Windows Media Audio format, which makes them playable on most computers and portable devices, and transferable to CD, but not compatible with the iPod.

The tracks are also encoded so that they can be copied or transferred only a certain number of times, usually three or fewer.