Apple's App Store today reached 25 billion downloads since its inception in 2008, and along with the milestone comes the end of the company's "25 Billion App Countdown" promotion launched just over two weeks ago. The winner of the promotion, who is yet to be announced, will be awarded a $10,000 gift card valid for App Store, Mac App Store, or any other iTunes Store content.



The App Store took a little under two and half years to reach 10 billion downloads, and less than six additional months to reach 15 billion downloads.



With today's milestone, the App Store has seen its last 10 billion downloads come over a period of just eight months, putting Apple's pace at 15 billion downloads per year and undoubtedly continuing to accelerate. As tracked by our sister site AppShopper, Apple has approved a total of nearly three quarters of a million apps for the App Store, with over 550,000 of them currently available in the store.