WINNER: Chinese man downloads 25th bn app

Apple announced that downloads from its App store had hit 25 billion, with a person in eastern China grabbing a $10,000 prize for taking the tally to the landmark level. The historic milestone was reached in apps downloaded worldwide.

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Apple announced Monday said that downloads from its App store had hit 25 billion, with a person in eastern China grabbing a $10,000 prize for taking the tally to the landmark level.

Chunli Fu of Qingdao, in eastern China, downloaded a free version of the Disney game Where's My Water?, winning a $10,000 (63,000 yuan) iTunes gift card, the company said.

'We'd like to thank our customers and developers for helping us achieve this historic milestone of 25 billion apps downloaded,' Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, said in a statement. 'When we launched the App Store less than four years ago, we never imagined that mobile apps would become the phenomenon they have, or that developers would create such an incredible selection of apps' for the company's iOS operating system.

The historic milestone was reached in apps downloaded to more than 315 million Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod devices worldwide, the Cupertino, California-based company said.

The App Store offers more than 550,000 micro-applications to users in 123 countries around the world, including games, business, news, sports, health and fitness, and travel uses.

The App Store has paid more than $4.0 billion to developers, the company added.

The announcement came ahead of Apple's media event scheduled Wednesday that is expected to unveil the next generation of the hot-selling iPad tablet computer.