iTunes price difference raising concerns

Apple recently started their iTunes music store in Canada. It came a bit late but the Canadians welcomed it. iTunes now cover most of European countries in addition to this. And this is leading to certain problems with the differences in the currency values in these countries.

iTunes in USA charges 99 cents for a song. They charge the same in Canada. But as per today’s rates (Source: XE.com), 99 Canadian cents is worth around 83 American cents. That means a customer in America is paying around 16 cents more for every song when compared to a customer in Canada.

Similar rate differences are visible in the iTunes European market. Customers in the UK have to pay 79p to download a song while customers in Germany and France are only spending 68p. Sounds pretty unfair to me.

Users download songs using their Internet connection, which does not require Apple to spend anything on delivery. This adds to the confusion on why the rates in different markets differ so much.