After almost a decade long wait, South African iTunes users can finally, and legally, purchase music through the South African iTunes Music Store.

Purchasing music has never been easier. By associating a South African credit card with your South African iTunes account, buying songs and albums from your favourite artists is literally only a click away.

The Cupertino based company has also promised to support and focus on local music for each respective region. As a result, music from South African artists like The Parlotones, Arno Carstens, Karen Zoid, Die Antwoord, Freshlyground, Goodluck and many more, are available for immediate purchase and enjoyment.

Content in the South African iTunes marketplace is also billed in Rands. Now you can finally have the discography of every South Africa Idols winner without needing a currency converter to determine the total cost.

Albums on the South African marketplace average between R60 and R120, depending on the artist, with most hovering around the R70 mark. R70 is a great price for a new album, considering how local South African distributors charge upwards of R150 for each new release – irrespective of whether the release is by a local or international artist. Single songs retail for between R7 and R9 per track with a price that, once again, varies by artist. Just like in other iTunes stores worldwide, it is often cheaper to buy an entire album than each track separately.

iTunes Match is also available to South African users and essentially allows users to carry their entire iTunes library with them, as long as they have a connection to the Internet in order to stream their library to an iOS device or Mac of their choosing.

Unfortunately, television series and movies are still not available through the South African iTunes store. However, we remain hopeful that it will happen in the near future. Until then, movie and television series aficionado’s can setup a United States iTunes Account.

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Apple® today announced the launch of the iTunes Store® in Russia, Turkey, India, South Africa and 52 additional countries featuring an incredible selection of local and international music from all the major labels and thousands of independent labels. The iTunes Store features local artists including Elka in Russia, Sezen Aksu in Turkey, AR Rahman in India, and Zahara in South Africa, international artists including The Beatles, Taylor Swift and Coldplay, and world-renowned classical musicians including Lang Lang, Yo Yo Ma and Yuja Wang. Customers can choose from over 20 million songs available to purchase and download on the iTunes Store. 

Movie fans can choose from a wide selection of films available for rent or purchase from the iTunes Store, with many available in stunning HD, from major studios including 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, The Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures, as well as leading local distributors.* 

The iTunes Store is available in 119 countries and is the best way for iPhone®, iPad®, iPod®, Mac® and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music online. All music on the iTunes Store comes in iTunes Plus®, Apple’s DRM-free format with high-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings. 

iTunes® in the Cloud lets you download your previously purchased iTunes music to all your iOS devices at no additional cost, and new music purchases can be downloaded automatically to all your devices. In addition, music not purchased from the iTunes Store can gain the same benefits by using iTunes Match℠, a service that stores your entire music library in iCloud® for access at any time, from any iOS device. iTunes Match is available for purchase in the new countries added today. 

Customers also have access to the revolutionary App Store℠ with more than 700,000 apps available in 155 countries.

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[Sources: Bandwidth Blog]

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Owner, founder and editor-in-chief at Vamers, Hans has a vested interest in geek culture and the interactive entertainment industry. With a Masters degree in Communications and Ludology, he is well read and versed in matters relating to video games and communication media, among many other topics of interest.