Over 25 billion served: No, this time it's not McDonalds, but Apple iTunes, which announced it sold its 25 billionth song today.
According to Apple's announcement, the 25 billionth song to be purchased and downloaded was "Monkey Drums" (Goksel Vancin Remix) by Chase Bush. It was bought by Phillip Lüpke from Germany, who received a €10,000 iTunes gift card for his well-timed purchase (so he'll probably end up purchasing the 26 billionth song as well).
"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.
The iTunes music store is the most-frequented music store, in part because it contains 26 million songs, and counting, which are available in 119 countries. The 25 billion download count means that the iTunes music store has averaged over 15,000 songs downloaded per minute since its inception.
The German music lover hit the iTunes lotto today being the 25 billionth download (his gift card is worth about $13,500 American). The question that comes to mind is, "Can you even find enough things to spend that $13,000 on iTunes?" and "Would you ever have enough hard drive space to store it, much less enough time to consume all that media?"
Along with the lucky music purchaser, musician Chase Bush also hit the jackpot, and is probably pretty happy to have his name spread across the globe with this Apple announcement today. While the majority of iTunes downloads are top pop songs, the fact that the 25 billionth download was "Chase Bush" and not Justin Bieber is testament to the long-tail depth of Apple's iTunes music store, where less-known artists have always had an easier time showing and selling their work than in the days before Apple revolutionized the paid digital distribution model. And that's a reason to be happy iTunes continues to do so well.
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