Univision sets up digital shop
Digital music sales have long lagged behind physical sales in the Latin music world. The launch of a digital music store by Univision Communications, the largest Spanish-language media company in the United States, may shift that dynamic.
The retail effort will take root at Univision.com and aims to be live by June 9, to benefit from World Cup traffic. The store, powered by Canadian company Puretracks, will launch with a minimum music base of 1.1 million tracks in all genres, including at least 55,000 Latin songs. Plans call for tens of thousands more Latin tracks to be added.
Although there already are several digital stores catering to Spanish speakers, none come with Univision’s clout. Univision.com is one of the most heavily trafficked Spanish-language sites in the United States, with more than 10 million unique monthly visitors, according to Bruno Lopez, vice president and general manager of Univision Online.
Latin-focused stores elatinmusic.com and misrolas.com have been open for business since last year, with mixed results. Elatinmusic, which declined to provide sales data, offers about 90,000 tracks, including best sellers Luis Miguel and Tego Calderon. Misrolas sells only music from indie labels. Sites like Yahoo en Espanol, MSN Latino and AOL Latino all have substantial Latin music content, but none offer digital downloads.
According to Nielsen SoundScan, of the 16.2 million digital albums sold in 2005, only 124,000 albums, a meager 0.07 percent, were Latin music. In comparison, Latin titles accounted for 6 percent of all music sales in the United States for the same time period.
For univision.com, which already sells physical albums and ringtones, a digital store was a logical next step.
Lopez says he has agreements in place with the four major labels and is in the process of signing deals with indie labels. By November, when the Latin
Grammy Awards air on the Univision network, he expects to have all nominated artists and albums on the site.
Most tracks on univision.com will sell for 99 cents, while the bulk of albums will retail for $9.99.
Puretracks has a dedicated Latin music editor and team that will work hand-in-hand with Univision, in addition to a Spanish-speaking help desk for users.
Source: Reuters/Billboard
