iTunes sells five billion songs

Apple announces musical milestone

19 June 2008 15:07 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Apple has announced that its iTunes Store has hit the five billion songs sold milestone.

This shows really fast recent growth for the store that was launched in 2003, as in July last year Apple made a similar announcement about hitting the three billion mark.

This means music fans have purchased and downloaded over two billion songs in less than a year.

Since then the company's DRM-free offerings have gone live, and been reduced in price and the company has launched a Wi-Fi version of the store.

NPD data puts iTunes as the number one music retailer in the US, based on music sold during January and February this year, and it claims to offer the largest music catalogue with over eight million songs.

Also, Apple is keen for us to note, iTunes customers are now renting and purchasing over 50,000 movies every day, making iTunes the world's most popular online movie store.

We'll expect a similar movies milestone announcement soon...