With the objective of expanding of its customer base and offering stiffer competition to Apple Inc's iTunes, the Los Angeles-based digital music supplier Napster announced on Monday that it is cutting its monthly subscription price from a $12.95 to $5, as well as adding downloads of songs to its streaming service.

The announced move, which is the Napster's most recent endeavor to take on the dominant digital music leader iTunes, happens to be the first key tactical shot ever since its $122-million-in-cash acquisition by retailer Best Buy Co Inc in October last year.

While Napster earlier charged subscribers $12.95 for a streaming-only service; its new, slashed subscription price will give users unlimited access to stream music from its
7-million-songs library, along with free downloads of five songs, including new releases, every month.

Napster's offer is comparatively more economical than Apple Inc.'s iTunes current charging of up to $1.29 for new, more popular tracks. In addition, Napster also permits unrestrained full-length song previews as against iTunes' 30-second samples.

Talking about Napster's new offering vis-à-vis iTunes, the company's CEO Chris Gorog said: "It's a killer offer we believe stands up nicely across any competitive lens you put it through. We've worked very closely with our label partners to come up with a re-engineered economic structure that is a win-win for everyone starting with consumers."