Feature will subtract cost of singles bought before purchase of complete album

SAN JOSE - Apple Inc., the company that popularized selling songs online for 99 cents apiece, now hopes to buoy interest in albums, giving customers credit for purchases of full albums from which they have bought individual tracks.

Apple introduced the "Complete My Album" feature Thursday on its iTunes Store. It now gives a full credit of 99 cents for every track the user previously purchased and applies it toward the purchase of the complete album.

For instance, most albums on iTunes cost $9.99, so a customer who already bought three tracks can download the rest of the album for $7.02.

Previously, users who bought singles and later opted to buy the album had to pay the full price of the album and ended up with duplicates of those songs.

The album price reduction is good for only 180 days after the initial purchase of individual tracks.

Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes, said the new feature should help eliminate the resistance that customers, including himself, may have felt in buying an album after they had already bought a single from it.

"Once we bought a song, we wondered why we had to buy it again if we wanted the album," Cue said. "We hope it helps us sell more songs ultimately, and from the customer point of the view, we think it's the right thing to do."

About 45 percent of the nearly 2.5billion songs sold on iTunes were purchased as albums, Cue said.

For a limited period of 90 days, Apple said it will make the "Complete My Album" offer retroactive to users who purchased tracks dating back to the launch of iTunes four years ago.

Apple dominates the online music market and is a leading music retailer worldwide behind only Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best Buy Co. and Target Corp.

Thomas Hesse, a president of global digital business at Sony BMG Music Entertainment, called "Complete My Album" a "revolutionary" offering from the Cupertino-based company.

"ITunes is giving music fans the best of both worlds - the ability to discover great new music by buying just the single and a credit toward the purchase of the complete album," he said in a statement.

Shares of Apple climbed 51 cents to close at $93.75 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.