Info Plant Surveys Rakuten Music Download Users.

Tokyo, Japan, Aug 5, 2005 - (JCNN) - Collaborating with USEN's OnGen USEN MUSIC SERVER, Rakuten will launch in mid-August Rakuten Music Download, a service which will allow users to have a choice of 110,000 songs from 100 labels for online purchase.

The planned price per song will be around 120-130 yen ($1.07-1.16), and users will also be able to have access to information on artists and rankings. Market researcher Info Plant asked 300 Internet users aged 18 to 49 about the new service.

Of the respondents, 30% answered the service will be fascinating, saying that the price is reasonable, while 40% do not feel fascinated by the service. However, only 10% of the respondents want to actually use the service.

A substantial number of those surveyed (40-50%) said they do not want to use any type of paid music download service going forward, as they rather use CD shops or CD rental stores: for example, more than 70% of the respondents in their 20s have rented more than seven CDs since last year.

About 10-15% of the respondents have experienced in downloading music, and of them, 40% are satisfied with their experience.

Popular music download websites are avex's @MUSIC and Sony's bitmusic. As to audio devices for listening to music, about 40% use desktop PCs, followed by boombox users.

Source: JCN http://www.japancorp.net

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