Apple has extended its iTunes Store to 12 Asian markets including Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, but not to the Indian, Chinese and Indonesian markets. Users in the 12 new markets will be able to buy and download local and international music from all major labels and thousands of independent labels, and rent or purchase movies from major studios including 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, The Walt Disney Studios and Warner Brothers. In addition to these, Apple has also extended its iTunes Match service in these markets, allowing users to re-download previously downloaded music (even music purchased & downloaded from sources other than iTunes) from iTunes, and store it in the cloud. Note that the iTunes Store is different from the Apps Store, which is also available in India. Presently, the Indian iTunes Store only features some free books and podcasts. So why did Apple exclude India from this launch? Apple India Corporate Communications, when contacted by MediaNama, declined to comment on the matter. Licensing Issues? However, we feel that it might have to do with Apple getting a blanket license for the Asia Pacific region, which excludes India. We tried to access the Sri Lankan iTunes Store and found a large number of Asian content including Asian artists such as Jay Chou, Girls Generation and Andy Lau. It's strange that Apple decided to include them in the Sri Lankan store as they're not relevant to the region,…
