Apple Announces 25 Billion Songs Sold in iTunes Music Store

Apple today announced that the iTunes Store has reached a new milestone, passing 25 billion songs downloaded. Interestingly, Apple also announced that it has awarded a €10,000 iTunes Gift Card to the user who downloaded the milestone song even though the company did not run a high-profile promotion for the contest as it has for past music and app milestones.

The 25 billionth song, “Monkey Drums” (Goksel Vancin Remix) by Chase Buch, was purchased by Phillip Lüpke from Germany. As the downloader of the 25 billionth song, Phillip will receive a €10,000 iTunes® Gift Card.

“We are grateful to our users whose passion for music over the past 10 years has made iTunes the number one music retailer in the world,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “Averaging over 15,000 songs downloaded per minute, the iTunes Store connects music fans with their favorite artists, including global sensations like Adele and Coldplay and new artists like The Lumineers, on a scale we never imagined possible.”

itunes_store_killers
Apple notes that the iTunes Store now offers over 26 million songs and is available in 119 countries after December's expansion to 56 new countries.

Popular Stories

airtag purple

AirTag 2 Rumored to Launch Next Year With These New Features

Sunday November 17, 2024 5:18 am PST by
Apple released the AirTag in April 2021, so it is now three over and a half years old. While the AirTag has not received any hardware updates since then, a new version of the item tracking accessory is rumored to be in development. Below, we recap rumors about a second-generation AirTag. Timing Apple is aiming to release a new AirTag in mid-2025, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman....
Magic Mouse Next to Keyboard

No, Apple CEO Tim Cook Didn't Say He Prefers Logitech's MX Master 3 Over the Magic Mouse

Sunday November 17, 2024 3:03 pm PST by
While the Logitech MX Master 3 is a terrific mouse for the Mac, reports claiming that Apple CEO Tim Cook prefers that mouse over the Magic Mouse are false. The Wall Street Journal last month published an interview with Cook, in which he said he uses every Apple product every day. Soon after, The Verge's Wes Davis attempted to replicate using every Apple product in a single day. During that...
New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

18 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Wednesday November 13, 2024 2:09 am PST by
Apple is set to release iOS 18.2 next month, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. There are a handful of new non-AI related feature controls incoming as well....
iCloud General Feature

Apple Acknowledges iCloud Notes Disappearing and Explains How to Fix

Saturday November 16, 2024 9:45 am PST by
Earlier this month, we reported about some iPhone users temporarily losing all of their notes in the Notes app after accepting Apple's updated iCloud terms and conditions. Apple has now indirectly acknowledged this issue in a new support document that outlines steps to follow if your iCloud notes are not appearing on your iPhone, iPad, or Vision Pro. Fortunately, the notes can be re-synced...
iPhone 7 Lightning to Headphone Jack Adapter

Apple Seemingly Discontinuing Lightning to Headphone Jack Adapter Introduced Alongside iPhone 7

Sunday November 17, 2024 12:33 pm PST by
It appears that Apple is discontinuing the Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter that it released alongside the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in 2016. The adapter was recently listed as "sold out" on Apple's online store in the U.S. and most other countries, according to MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris. The adapter remains available from Apple in only a handful of countries, such as...

Top Rated Comments

ouimetnick Avatar
154 months ago
One morning an Apple engineer was checking on iTunes stats. He noticed the songs downloaded was rapidly approaching 25 Billion. He gave his boss a call. Hey Eddy he said. We are approaching 25 billion songs downloaded. Wow! Eddy remarked. He was pretty excited and happy. He was just promoted and got a pay raise. "I'll let Tim and Phil know" Eddy said as he hung up the phone.

Tim and Phil were at the Apple cafeteria waiting in line for their sushi breakfast when all of a sudden Tim's phone started blazing out Green Day's new song, Fell for you. Phil, startled asked what that was. Tim exclaimed it is his ringtone that goes off only when Eddy calls. Tim answered and annoyed, asked Eddy "What now"? Tim had only had 3 hours of sleep from coming back from China. We are only minutes away from 25 billion downloads Eddy said excitedly! Thats great! Tim replied. This news put a smile on Tim's face knowing that they are reaching another milestone. I'll call you back when the 25 billionth song is downlo…We NEED a prize to give the guy Tim interrupted. Right said Eddy. We can just do a gift card like we have done okay? Thats good exclaimed Tim.

About 30 minutes later, the phone went off again. Tim knew what he was about to hear.
A guy from Germany downloaded a song called "Monkey Drums"… Thats the 25 billionth song. Tim slightly saddened mentioned that he wished it was a Green Day song or a Lady Gaga song that was the 25 billionth downloaded.

Tim sighed "Well, send the info to the PR department".
Will do Eddy said with enthusiasm.

Eddy happily hung up and called PR. We got 25 billion sings downloaded. It was Phillip Lüpke from Germany who has a fetish for Monkeys. He downloaded Monkey Drums. Issue a press release immediately. We are sending him EUR10,000 iTunes Card. He should be set for life on iTunes downloads. He said happily.

A PR was issued, and thus MacRumors reported on it.
__________________

25 Billion. Wow. The App Store is still climbing faster though.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
576316 Avatar
154 months ago
Since using Spotify, I haven't bought music from iTunes in ages... maybe not even one song in the last year.. Still an impressive number though! :)

I used to pay for Spotify but I soon realised I wasn't using £10 worth of songs each month to make it worth paying for. So I now only buy songs from iTunes/Amazon MP3 which I know I will listen to a lot.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kirky29 Avatar
154 months ago
Since using Spotify, I haven't bought music from iTunes in ages... maybe not even one song in the last year.. Still an impressive number though! :)
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Jugney Avatar
154 months ago
I was curious when their last milestone was, to see the rate of purchases on the iTunes store...a Google search revealed they announced 20 billion back in September.

That means it took them 11 years to sell the first 20 billion. And 5 months to sell a quarter again of that.

I would have thought it was slowing with Spotify and other services on the rise. But the above figures mean music purchases on iTunes are accelerating.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ebow Avatar
154 months ago
I was curious when their last milestone was, to see the rate of purchases on the iTunes store...a Google search revealed they announced 20 billion back in September.

That means it took them 11 years to sell the first 20 billion. And 5 months to sell a quarter again of that.

I would have thought it was slowing with Spotify and other services on the rise. But the above figures mean music purchases on iTunes are accelerating.

Your numbers are a bit off, but your conclusion is spot-on. The iTunes Music Store launched on 28 April 2003, so it has been open for almost, but not quite, 10 years now.

I've been tracking Apple's milestone announcements since the store launched (don't ask me why, I really don't know). Overall they've sold 7 million songs per day since launch, which is up from the 5.84 million per day as of Sept 2012 (when they reached 20 billion). The recent pace, though, has really accelerated. They've sold 34 million songs per day since last Sept's announcement. Before that, the pace was 10-11 million per day.

See the included screenshot of my nerdtastic spreadsheet. :o
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Thunderhawks Avatar
154 months ago
phillip lüpke is lucky. I wonder what other good things have happened to him lately?

he has health insurance
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)