KKBOX Inc, Taiwan’s largest digital music service provider, is gearing up to launch its “all-you-can-eat” monthly package in Japan in the third quarter, marking its second overseas foray after Hong Kong.
“Per-song downloads is the mainstream digital music payment model in Japan. Our ‘all-you-can-eat’ package will be the first such business model there,” KKBOX general manager Izero Lee (李明哲) told reporters yesterday.
The average fee for per-song downloads is ￥350 (US$4.3) in Japan, compared with NT$19 (US$0.6) in Taiwan, he said.
The monthly subscription package — in which users can tune into online music 24X7 on their PCs or mobile phones with by clicking on KKBOX software — will tentatively be priced at about ￥2,500, Lee said.
The monthly package KKBOX offers in Taiwan costs only NT$149.
The Japanese foray comes in the wake of KDDI Corp, Japan’s No. 2 telecom services provider purchasing a 76 percent stake in KKBOX for ￥5 billion in December.
KKBOX became a subsidiary of KDDI, which has said it aims to tap KKBOX’s know-how to provide new content services for its smartphone users and pave the way for its entry into China.
According to Lee, KKBOX’s business priority this year is to enhance services in Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as roll out its service in Japan.
“We have been exploring opportunities in China, Malaysia and Singapore, but the copyrights talks with domestic labels have been difficult,” he said.
Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信), Taiwan’s No. 3 telecoms company, recently jteamed up with seven local record companies to launch “Omusic,” another digital music platform with has a collection of more than 200,000 titles.
This is the first time that Taiwanese fans can download songs legally to multiple electronics devices at one time by paying a single fee of NT$19. These titles are also free of digital rights management — a technology that limits song downloads to a single device.
KKBOX, which has more than 1 million songs in its archive, does not offer a per-song download service just yet, but it will follow in Omusic’s footsteps by offering the same service at the same price in July, Lee said.
Separately, Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation’s largest telecoms company and an investor in KKBOX, yesterday introduced “Hinet Funplay” digital music platform for businesses.
The platform is based on the music archive and technology of KKBOX, in which businesses can play the latest Mandarin pop songs in their outlets without worrying about their legality as the songs are all legally approved for playing in public venues.
Zoe International (展圓國際) — whose popular food-and-beverage chains include Azabu Sabo (麻布茶房), Dain Ti Hill (代官山) and Tamago Ya (蛋蛋屋) — is one of the first firms to sign up for Hinet Funplay.
Operating 50 dining outlets nationwide, Zoe is forking out a monthly fee of NT$1,200 per outlet to utilize the service, but chairman Chang Pao-ling (張寶鄰) said the service is worth every penny.
“We have eight dining brands that target various customer segments. We can play a variety of music in our outlets now without worrying that we might be violating copyright laws,” Chang said.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
RSS