Apple announced Tuesday the official launch of the iTunes Music Store in Mexico. The store launches with a full catalog of several million songs priced at 12 pesos ($0.91) with most albums priced at 120 pesos ($9). Gift cards will also be available at several Mexican retailers in denominations of 200 ($15), 300 ($23), and 600 pesos ($45).
The store comes over six years after the original launch of the iTunes Music store in the United States. All tracks, like in the US and abroad, are DRM free, available in iTunes Plus+ AAC format encoded at 256kbps. "The iTunes Store in Mexico is off to a great start with music from all of the majors and hundreds of indie labels," said Eddy Cue, Apple"s vice president of Internet Services.
The store also features Music Videos, priced at just 24 pesos ($1.80). Music is available from all major record labels including several independent artists and labels. Podcasts are also available featuring several mexican shows such as Televisa, MVS Televisión and Grupo Reforma. Notably missing from the store are TV shows and feature-length movies which are still unavailable in most international countries. Most interestingly, iPhone owners in Mexico have had access to only the iTunes App Store since the iPhone 3G launch last year. Mexico now becomes the first and only Latin American country thus far with an iTunes Music Store.
The store officially launched on August 4, 2009 and interested users can find more information at https://www.itunes.com/mexico.