Apple has announced that music fans have purchased and downloaded more than 100 million songs from the iTunes Music Store, marking a major milestone for the emerging online music business.

The 100 millionth song, “Somersault (Dangermouse remix)” by Zero7 was purchased by Kevin Britten, age 20, of Hays, Kansas on Sunday, July 11. As the grand prize winner of Apple’s 100 million song countdown, Kevin Britten will receive a 17-inch PowerBook, a 40GB iPod, a gift certificate for 10,000 iTunes songs to create the ultimate music library for his iPod and the opportunity to create his own Celebrity Playlist to be published on the iTunes Music Store.

“As we cross this historic milestone, we want to thank our customers, the artists and the music labels who have embraced our dream for iTunes,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iTunes quickly outpaced the competition and is far and away the world’s number one online music service.”

Apple offers a complete solution for discovering, buying, managing and listening to digital music anywhere with the unbeatable combination of iTunes, iPod and the new AirPort Express with AirTunes which lets music lovers wirelessly stream music from their Mac or PC to a stereo located in any room in their home.

The iTunes Music Store in the US, UK, France and Germany offers over 700,000 songs in each country. With Apple’s legendary ease-of-use, pioneering features, personal use rights and breakthrough pricing of just $0.99, euro 0.99 and 0.79 pounds Sterling, the iTunes Music Store is the best way for PC and Mac users to legally discover, purchase and download music online. The iTunes Music Store gives users the ability to play songs on up to five personal computers, burn a song onto CDs an unlimited number of times, burn the same playlist up to seven times and listen to their music on an unlimited number of iPods.