This paper gives a summary of the First Answer Set Programming System Competition that was held in conjunction with the Ninth International Conference on Logic Programming and Nonmonotonic Reasoning. The aims of the competition were twofold: first, to collect challenging benchmark problems, and second, to provide a platform to assess a broad variety of Answer Set Programming systems. The competition was inspired by similar events in neighboring fields, where regular benchmarking has been a major factor behind improvements in the developed systems and their ability to address practical applications.