Samsung is taking competition from Apple seriously. The company is now coming out with its own music service to compete with iTunes on Samsung devices. The company has announced new app and service Music Hub.

Music Hub is a completely integrated mobile music service which will be available exclusively to Samsung Galaxy users. Samsung is using Samsung Galaxy S 3 to introduce the service. However, the company says that the service will be available to other Galaxy phones and tablets.

Samsung is becoming extremely ambitious and is looking for more revenues outside the hardware business. The company earlier showed its intentions to enter the mobile advertisement market and now it wants to monitize from content and Music Hub seems to be the beginning of it.

Can Samsung Succeed At It?
Samsung is not known for content and services (the company is often criticized for not updating its devices to the latest version of Android) so entry into the content market will see how Samsung is going to tackle this. The company is also not known for innovative designs of its products and despite the impressive market share Samsung Galaxy phones or tablets doesn't show the same design elegance that iPhone or iPad shows. The much talked about Galaxy S 3 doesn't have any edge over the iPhone from design point of view. The rectangular home button is nothing more than an eyesore. Same is the problem with the hardware. The display of Samsung Galaxy S3 is still behind iPhone 4 and Galaxy Nexus phone. So, how will Samsung perform in the content space will be interesting to watch.

Music Hub vs Google Music/iTunes
Google Music allows you to scan and upload music from your local directory to the cloud without any cost. It also allows you to purchase music from the available labels. Samsung is offering two services – free and paid. The free service allows you search music from the vast, 19 million song catalog provided by 7digital. You can purchase songs and albums and which will be stored in the cloud and automatically appears on all of your devices, while music can also be stored locally on devices for offline listening. What you can't do, unlike Google Music, is upload music from your local directory to Samsung cloud.

In order to be able to upload music you need to get the "Music Hub Premium" account for E 9.99 per month. The premium package allows you to upload and access your entire music collection anywhere in addition to the features that you get from the free version.

Music is a tricky market and with players like Amazon and Google in the market which are available across the Android devices, Samsung's offering may appear to be less appealing to those who are not loyal to a brand.

Music outside the US
The great news about Samsung's Music Hub is that unlike Google Music it is available outside the US as well so global users who are not able to access a majority of Google offerings such as Google Music or Google Books will be able to purchase and maintain their music collections.

What Music Hub can do for Samsung is give company an edge over other Android players with its premium services. It will be interesting to see if Samsung users will be buying the paid music service. If you are a Galaxy user will you use this service?