HMV and Virgin to do digital battle in days

Two of the major high street music chains in the UK are to go to war online, with the pair set to launch their respective download offerings within days of each other.

Both HMV and Virgin have announced they are to open the doors of their music download services in early September, with HMV to launch on 5 September and Virgin Digital UK to launch this Friday.

Virgin will be offering around 1.2 million songs at between £0.49 and £0.79, while HMV is thought to be providing slightly more at 1.5 million, although it has yet to unveil its pricing structure.

The two song shops will offer an unlimited subscription service, with Virgin's starting at £9.99 per month, and both will sell songs only in the Windows Media Audio file format.

While some analysts have predicted an online music bubble, both HMV and Virgin are hoping their high street presence will transfer across to the online world.

Although Apple's iTunes remains the market leader in online song sales, shifting more than half a billion tracks since its creation, there are now more than 300 individual legal music download sites in operation. However, Apple has so far refused to allow any other song sellers to license the technology needed to make downloads compatible with the iPod.

A Virgin spokeswoman said: "Apple has chosen to keep iPod and iTunes coding rights closed off from all other digital music services, including Virgin Digital."

Analyst house JupiterResearch predicts that by 2009, digital music in Europe will be worth €836m.