Apple expands iTunes movie access to 42 new countries, for a huge lead before Microsoft and Google

Hot on the heels of the recent expansion of its iTunes music store to 56 countries, now Apple rolled out movie purchasing and rentals to 42 of them, too.

Before this expansion, about half of the world's population had theoretical movie access via iTunes, and now the figure is likely just south of the 61% of the world's potential market Apple commands with music. These are the newcomers:

Europe: Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine

Africa, the Middle East and India: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Botswana, Cape Verde, Egypt, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, India, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Swaziland, United Arab Emirates, Uganda and Zimbabwe 

Asia Pacific: Indonesia, Micronesia, Mongolia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan

Latin America and the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago

This puts Apple at a huge advantage in two of the three most important media categories - music, movies and books - compared to Microsoft, Google and Amazon, as you can see in the Macstories chart below, which was made before the new countries where movie access lit up.

Once the world is satiated with smartphones, the attention will quickly turn to the ecosystems themselves, and Apple seems to have a vast lead on the media side of things now. Amazon still leads widely in books, and TV offerings are abysmally low - just up to 8.3% of the world has access through the mobile platforms, but with today's rumors around an Apple television set, Cupertino might very well pull ahead of anybody else there, too.