After much of the typical speculation, and denials from Apple, New Zealand now has it’s own iTunes Music Store, launched today.

At $1.79 a track, it is slightly cheaper than other competing music stores in New Zealand, like Digirama and RipIt. Thanks to Mike for pointing this out, Digirama is actually cheaper. Not by a lot. iTunes sells songs at $1.79, and albums at $17.99 (most of them anyway). Digirama on the other hand is $1.74, and albums at $17.

There are a number of New Zealand artists on the store, including Fat Freddies Drop, Tim and Neil Finn, and Pluto.

To get to the iTunes store, download iTunes from Apple, and select the New Zealand music store from the picker at the bottom of the iTMS home page.

Russell Brown is taking great delight at being the first to announce the date of the store… however rumours have been spreading like wildfire since the Australian music store launched a year ago.

There is also an Apple Store too, with 10% cheaper products.