Apple Announces 25 Billion Songs Sold in iTunes Music Store

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.
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25 Billion. Wow. The App Store is still climbing faster though.

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.

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 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.

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

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 was thinking I'd never have to buy a song on iTunes again but then there was this:

phillip lüpke is lucky. I wonder what other good things have happened to him lately?

he has health insurance

Am I the only one who actually looked for the song on iTunes^^
WOW this song is sick thanks Phillip :D :D luv it

Haha okay, I facebooked him & he looks like a doc^^
OBVIOUSLY o.O but there are multiple Lüpkes ;)

"Phillip will receive a €10,000 iTunes® Gift Card."

That's going to just wreck Zynga's leaderboards.

I've only bought a handful of songs / albums from iTunes. I really like buying from Amazon's digital store because:
-MP3 (no DRM)
-Frequent sales.

The last few albums I bought were $5.99, for good, modern stuff. Nice.

I like having the Amazon option, but Apple's choice of MP4 (AAC) format gives better quality and also has NO DRM. At the dawn of the iTunes Store the music labels required DRM (Fairplay) and iTunes video still has it. But Apple fought for DRM-free music and ultimately we got it.

1. Thanks for calling me stupid and unorganised
2. Example: I bought "Once" by Nightwish. Amazon had it for $5.99. iTunes listed it for $9.99. 40% off beats 20% off, right? Or is that just me being stupid again?

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Nothing.

What's wrong with the milk at the gas station? Nothing, but I'd rather go to the grocery store and pay a lot less for the same thing.

Seriously! Amazon prices most of the time are definitely more than 20% off of what iTunes has, especially when you catch their sales. I really enjoy the iTunes experience for buying/browsing, but Amazon is not too far off. Plus, the Cloud Player is a nice addition. Currently Apple does not offer web streaming or streaming of just purchased items to your phone (you can only do this through iTunes Match so far).

MP3 files sound just as good. Like I said before, anything 256+kbps, you are not going to tell the difference. Now you may be able to tell the difference if you have great equipment between a lossless file and a lossy file, but between lossy formats, good luck.