Meet German student Phillip Luepke. Apple credited him as responsible for iTunes' 25 billion music downloads as of Wednesday this week.

The Apple music store clocked the impressive milestone after 10 years since it opened for business and to celebrate the tech giant decided to give away €10,000 and Mr Luepke is the lucky recipient.

Unfortunately for the Economics major, the prize will not come in cold cash. He'll get it in the form of iTunes Gift Card, the value honoured only within the Apple online music store.

Mr Luepke himself told Reuters that he's unsure what to do with the Apple imaginary bills. Most likely though, the gift card will allow him explore more of the estimated 26 million tunes that Apple sells via iTunes.

No new gizmo for him but at least he'll pad up on his ageing machine's library of music and movie files, thanks to Apple's gratuity, the German told Reuters.

According to Apple, Mr Luepke's ticket to the iTunes gift card was made possible by his purchase of a techno song titled 'Monkey Drums (Goksel Vancin Remix)' recorded by British DJ Chase Buch.

He picked up the song while partying over the weekend, Mr Luepke said, and decided to get his computer booming with it. To his surprise, he got more than a house party.

That's because Apple counts the German student as among the multitude of users "whose passion for music over the past 10 years has made iTunes the number one music retailer in the world."

The iTunes music store, according to Eddy Cue, SVP for Apple's Internet Software and Services division, "connects music fans with their favorite artists."

At present, iTunes is "averaging over 15,000 songs downloaded per minute," Mr Cue added in a statement.