Samsung today confirmed it will close its Music Hub and e-book store on July 1. The Music Hub served alongside the Samsung Hub – which sold music, videos, books, games, and educational content – on last year’s Galaxy S4 handset.
The Music Hub was a full music store, much like Google Play Music or the Amazon MP3 Store. It allowed users to buy individual tracks and albums. The same was true of the e-book store, which duplicated Google’s own offering, in addition to those of other providers, such as Amazon. Samsung didn’t explain the rationale behind its decision to shutter the music and e-book stores other than to say it was “striving for service differentiation and customer value enhancement.”
The Samsung Hub itself will also go away, and is no longer preinstalled on this year’s Galaxy S5. Instead, Samsung’s surviving services – movies, games, and educational content – will remain available as stand-alone apps.
Samsung’s music and e-book services will still be available to consumers in its home market of Korea.
