Amazon Just Fired A Missile At Apple's iTunes Business

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This morning, Amazon announced a new initiative that it hopes will threaten Apple's iTunes business.

Amazon is launching an HTML MP3 web store that's made for Apple devices: the iPhone and iPod touch. It will also run smoothly on the iPhone's default browser, Safari.

Amazon's store will offer 22 million songs. When a purchase is made, it will be transferred to an Amazon Cloud Player account, and accessible via desktop, mobile apps, and Kindle Fire.

By opening an Amazon web music store, the company will avoid paying Apple's hefty 30% chunk of sales.

“Since the launch of the Amazon Cloud Player app for iPhone and iPod touch, a top request from customers has been the ability to buy music from Amazon right from their devices," Steve Boom, Amazon's VP of Music says. "For the first time ever, iOS users have a way do that – now they can access Amazon’s huge catalog of music, features like personalized recommendations, deals like albums for $5, songs for $0.69, and they can buy their music once and use it everywhere.”

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.