It’s official - Apple has surpassed the 25 billion milestone mark for downloads from its App Store at the end of last week. The Cupertino-based tech outfit started the countdown to 25 billion apps on 17 February, when it stated that it will be giving the lucky person to download the 25 billionth app a $10 000 iTunes Gift Card. There’s no official word from Apple yet concerning the name of the winner or the app which he or she downloaded to cross this latest milestone.

The App Store took just two and half years to cross the ten billion mark for app downloads, reaching this milestone in January last year. Cupertino then managed to cross the 15 billionth mark in app downloads, less than six months later.  

According to MacRumors, the last ten billion downloads have come in under eight months, putting the company on track to reach a pace of 15 billion app downloads per year.  

Cupertino’s App Store is the biggest application market as it currently boasts over 500 000 applications for users of the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad and is available in 90 countries from around the world. Its closely followed by Google’s Android Market which sports more than 450 000 applications.

 

In related news Apple recently acquired app discovery company Chomp, to assist users in discovering new applications on its App Store.