Apple is about to reach its 25,000,000,000 billion app downloads and wants to give you $10,000 to celebrate it. Yes, for the lucky number 25 billion, Apple will give an App Store Gift Card with a value of $10,000.

The numbers are remarkable. A little over a year ago, they had celebrated the 10 billion mark and had another contest to give away $10,000. Given that the App Store launched in 2008, with 10 million app downloads in the first week alone, the growth has been exponential.

Here are some more numbers. There are currently over 500,000 active apps and over 100,000 that are inactive (no longer available). There are over 130,000 active app publishers in the U.S. App Store. The monthly submissions at the App Store are about 9,000 (and growing), with over 84 percent of those being games. The current average app price is $2 while the current average game app price is $1. With over 300 million iOS users, you can see why these numbers are so important.

Commenting on the previous 15 billion mark, Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said: “In just three years, the revolutionary App Store has grown to become the most exciting and successful software marketplace the world has ever seen.”

What is truly exciting about the App Store is not simply what is there, but was is not there. Although game apps are the big sellers, there is no limit to the potential of what can and will be offered at the App Store in the future.

Our piece about the iTunes U app is a perfect example. The idea that you can now access free courses from institutions like Yale, MIT, MoMA, and the New York Public Library speaks to the best of what the App Store can provide the individual and society as a whole.

The 25 billion contest does not require you to purchase an app. Simply fill out the entry form on iTunes, and whomever is the 25 billionth person will be the lucky winner, whether that is the 25billionth download or the person that fills the entry form after the “download of the 24,999,999,999th app, whichever comes first.”

And the contest is “open only to entrants who are at least the minimum age required by law in the country in which they are located at time of entry, and located in a participating App Store country.” So that means that even if you are in some remote corner of the world, you too have the chance to win that handsome gift card.

In the short time it took to write this article (minus the coffee break), there have been 2 million new downloads. Staggering numbers, indeed.