By AppleInsider Staff
Published: 08:00 AM EST
Apple announced Thursday that customers on its iTunes Store have purchased and downloaded over five billion songs to date.
The digital download service is the number one music retailer in the US, according to the most recent data from NPD Group's MusicWatch survey, and features the largest music catalog with over eight million songs.
Apple also said that iTunes customers are now renting and purchasing over 50,000 movies every day, or a yearly run rate of over 18 million, making iTunes the world's most popular online movie store as well.
In addition to its industry leading eight million songs, iTunes also sports a catalog of over 20,000 TV episodes and over 2,000 films, including over 350 in high definition video.
iTunes features movies from all of the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema.
Users can rent movies and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods, iPhone and on a widescreen TV with Apple TV. iTunes Store customers can also purchase new movie releases from major film studios and premier independent studios on the same day as their DVD release.
