Rock on: Apple’s iTunes Store has now sold over 25B songs

Apple’s iTunes Store has now sold more than 25 billion songs, making it the overwhelmingly dominant music and media store on the web.

The iTunes Store offers more than 26 million songs and is available in 119 countries. iTunes’ chief competitors, Amazon and Google Play, haven’t had the advantage Apple has had since it debuted the iPod back in 2001. The iPod quickly became the most popular MP3 player on the planet and relied on iTunes to get new songs. Ever since, iTunes has been the digital music store and player of choice for much of the world.

“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,” Apple SVP Eddy Cue said in a statement. “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.”

The 25 billionth song downloaded was “Monkey Drums” (Goksel Vancin Remix) by Chase Buch. The downloader, Phillip Lüpke from Germany, will receive a €10,000 iTunes gift card.

Man listening to music image via ollyy/Shutterstock