iTunes, the online music retailer from Apple has passed a significant milestone, having sold a staggering 25 billion song downloads since its inception nearly a decade ago. iTunes has become a significant source of revenue for Apple and Billboard reports that 21.6 million songs are downloaded a day. For those that don’t have time to do the maths, that’s 15,000 songs per minute. In 2008, iTunes surpassed Walmart to become the largest music retailer in the USA.

Apple’s Senior VP of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue, told Billboard “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.” In the US alone, iTunes has a 29% share in the market, leaving Walmart and Target dwindling in its wake. To celebrate the 25 billion song landmark, Apple gave a 10,000 Euro gift card to the person who made that all-important milestone download. Phillip Lupke had downloaded ‘Monkey Drums’ (Goksel Vancin Remix) by Chase Buch.

It’s not just music sales that have helped boost Apple’s revenues, though. iTunes users can also download digital books, games, mobile phone apps, magazines and movies. In essence, it’s big business and Apple have a firm grip on the global downloads market. iTunes have a catalogue of over 26 million tunes, spanning both major and independent label releases, as well as artists who self-publish their music. It boasts a database of 435 million active user accounts.