Samsung to get into Online Music Arena

Korean Electronics major, Samsung Electronics is venturing into what has been a monoply of Apple Inc., the online music business.

Choi Ji-Sung, the head of the company’s digital media division, on Friday told reporters the firm is preparing a service program similar to Apple’s iTunes in collaboration with domestic and foreign partners. It is to be launched soon.

"We are now in talks with our partners to debut a service program like iTunes of Apple. Our No. 1 priority is to help customers use our products with ease," the 54-year-old said.

"Our items show healthy performances in China and Southeast Asian countries where iTunes services are not provided," he added.

Apple started with a HDD-based mp3 player with 5 GB capacity in 2001 and since then it doubled the capacity every year. Now it has reached 60Gb in capacity. With its iPod Nano gadget, Apple made another step forward.

Samsung has unveiled their new 16GB NAND chip last month, in an attempt to further strengthen their market place as leaders in the NAND flash market.

Unlike flash portable players, the HDD-based players offer better storage; the latest Apple iPod devices offer up to 60GB of storage compared to Samsung’s 16GB NAND.