“Music lovers like you in 21 countries around the globe have purchased one billion songs from the iTunes Music Store. And for helping us reach this massive milestone in digital music history, we’d like to thank you,” Apple wrote in a note on its website. imagepop1 iTunes first launched on April 28, 2003 and it sold its first million tracks in the first 5 days and then reached the 70 million song mark on its one-year anniversary. The company sold more than a quarter of a billion songs worldwide by January 2005 and began its countdown to half a billion songs in early July 2005.