Under pressure from the European Union’s top watchdog, Apple have finally agreed to lower the price of iTunes downloads in the UK to bring them in line with the rest of Europe. British music fans can expect to see at least a 10% reduction within the next 6 months.

The European Union was in the middle of an antitrust investigation in to Apple over the differences in prices for downloading from their iTunes stores, but this decision by Apple to universalise the price across all EU states has meant that the proceedings will halt immediately.

Up until today, European consumers in every other EU country, including France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Sweden were paying the same flat rate of 99 Euro cents, while UK users were being charged 79 Pence.

Apple released a statement saying they would now work towards bringing the UK back in line with the rest of Europe, but did warn record labels:

Apple currently must pay some record labels more to distribute their music in the UK than it pays them to distribute the same music elsewhere in Europe. Apple will reconsider its continuing relationship in the UK with any record label that does not lower its wholesale prices in the UK to the pan-European level within six months.

There’s no official word yet on what the new price will be set at, but it’s guaranteed to be 10 percent less for UK consumers.

The European Commission started the investigation after it received a formal complaint from Which?, a UK based group who look after consumers rights to a fair deal.

Which responded to Apple’s new stance on the matter of pricing by telling The Register:

“We complained about Apple’s price discrimination back in 2004 – so we’re glad they’ve finally agreed to give British music lovers a fair deal.”

“The fact they’ll soon be able to download tracks for the same price as European customers will be music to the ears of UK iTunes customers. We hope other internet companies – including online music companies – will follow Apple’s lead and match UK prices to prices in continental Europe.”

This is a good move by Apple, although it was forced upon them by action being taken by the European Commission. It seems Apple are determined to squeeze every last penny out of British consumers while they can, one of the reasons that the iPhone hasn’t been the roaring success this side of the pond that it was in America.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 5:46 pm under Apple, Internet.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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