Apple can't resist a good boast, and the company is at it again on Wednesday, when it announced that iTunes has sold more than 25 billion songs in the last 10 years.
That's quite the achievement. What's possibly even more impressive is the fact that the music service averages 15,000 downloads a minute. Every minute! That's insane.
Here's Eddy Cue taking a victory lap:
"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 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."
"In a lot of ways, iTunes has leveled the playing field for musicians. Whether you're unsigned, indie, major, whatever-it's the place most people go to buy digital music," said Wesley Schultz, guitarist and lead vocalist of The Lumineers. "iTunes doesn't exclude any musicians simply because they're not yet established or popular."
So what was the 25 billionth song that was downloaded? That honor belongs to none other than "Monkey Drums" (Goksel Vancin Remix) by Chase Buch. The person responsible for downloading iTune's record-breaking song, Phillip Lüpke of Germany, will receive an iTunes gift card of €10,000, or roughly $13,500.
Apple also recently celebrated 40 billion App Store downloads.
The announcement comes as a reminder that Apple still dominates rivals when it comes to music downloads, even as competition heats up. Last month, Amazon made some aggressive moves in its attempt to take down the Cupertino giant when it announced the AutoRip music service. Basically an expansion of the company's Cloud-based music player, when customers by an AutoRip-enabled CD, they will get both the physical disc as well as an MP3 version of the album for free.
