The 25 billionth download milestone for iTunes

It was good news for Apple’s iTunes music store as its 25 billionth download was hit recently- which is equal to selling more than three songs to every person on Earth. And, that’s not all. iTunes, on Wednesday, gave a German student who bought the track a gift card worth 10,000 euro.

An Economics student, Phillip Luepke, 22, of Hanover, Germany, downloaded the techno song Monkey Drums (Goksel Vancin Remix) by British DJ Chase Buch, hitting the number a decade after the online music store debuted.

The student was was very surprised to hear the news and didn’t quite believe it at first.

Luepke, who is currently studying for exams, said that he came across the song at a disco last Saturday night and used the song-identification smartphone application Shazam to look up its name --- after which he downloaded “Monkey Drums” the following evening.

Luepke, who will celebrate this with a few friends, said he is not sure how he will spend the gift certificate, but he is confident that his music and movie collection will grow.

Cupertino, Califoria-based Apple launched the iTunes store in April 2003 and has averaged about 15,000 songs downloaded each minute. The store has a catalog of over 26 million songs in 119 countries.