Du takes on iTunes by launching Music Store for subscribers

Dubai: Du mobile phone users now have a place exclusively for them to browse through music.

The telco yesterday launched the Music Store, a service that allows users to download five songs a day for a daily subscription of Dh1. The site has an initial offering of over 10,000 songs.

Users of the service will not be charged for the download either. Du says the site offers Arabic, Bollywood, Indian, Tagalog and Western music. The files are DRM-free, meaning they can be moved and played on other devices. Subscribers will even be allowed to redownload the songs a maximum of three times.

The service will also allow du customers to share songs they like from the music store on to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The social integration will enable users to "like" a song on Facebook, share that tune with their friends via a Facebook wall post, or tweet about it on twitter.

Online music has become big business since Apple launched iTunes, one of the first legal music services, 10 years ago. The iTunes Store generated revenue of $1.1 billion (Dh4.04 billion) in the first fiscal quarter of this year. However, iTunes is not available in the Middle East and other attempts to offer online music have met with limited success.