Private company

Google Play

Logo: Google, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons³

Digital application and media distribution service by Google

Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store or Play Store, and formerly known as the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating system and its derivatives, as well as ChromeOS, allowing users to browse and download applications developed with the Android software development kit and published through Google.² Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

Oct 22, 2008Founded¹

Websiteplay.google.com

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The story

Google Play (previously styled Google play) originated from three distinct products: Android Market, Google Music, and Google Books (formerly Google eBookstore).

Apps

Android Market was announced by Google on August 28, 2008, and was made available to users on October 22. In December 2010, content filtering was added to Android Market, each app's details page started showing a promotional graphic at the top, and the maximum size of an app was raised from 25 megabytes to 50 megabytes. The Google eBookstore was launched on December 6, 2010, debuting with three million ebooks, making it "the largest ebooks collection in the world". In January 2011 Google eBookstore was rebranded as Google Books. In November 2011, Google announced Google Music, a section of the Google Play Store offering music purchases. In March 2012, Google increased the maximum allowed size of an app by allowing developers to attach two expansion files to an app's basic download; each expansion file with a maximum size of 2 gigabytes, giving app developers a total of 4 gigabytes. Also in March 2012, Android Market was re-branded as Google Play.

The Google Play Store, including all Android apps, came to ChromeOS in September 2016.

In May 2021, Google Play announced plans to implement a new section with privacy information for all applications in its storefront. The project is similar to App Store's privacy labels and is expected to be released in full in the first half of 2022. The feature will show users what kind of information each app collects, whether the data it stores is encrypted and whether users can opt out of being tracked by the application.

In December 2023, Google agreed to pay $700 million, mostly to its customers, to resolve complaints of anti-competitive behavior from U.S. states. Google also agreed to give users the option to pay through another party other than Google at download time, and make it easier to download apps from web sites directly.

Music

Google Play Music was a music and podcast Streaming media and online music locker. It features over 40 million songs, and gives users free cloud storage of up to 50,000 songs.

As of May 2017, Google Play Music was available in 64 countries.

In June 2018, Google announced plans to shut down Play Music by 2020 and offered users to migrate to YouTube Music, migration to Google Podcasts was announced in May 2020. In October 2020, the music store for Google Play Music was shut down. Google Play Music was shut down in December 2020 and was replaced by YouTube Music and Google Podcasts.

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News publications and magazines

Google Play Newsstand was a news aggregator and digital newsstand service offering subscriptions to digital magazines and topical news feeds. Google released Newsstand in November 2013, combining the features of Google Play Magazines and Google Currents into a single product.

On May 15, 2018, the mobile app merged with Google News & Weather to form Google News. The Newsstand section continued to appear on the Google Play website until November 5, 2018, but now is only available through the Google News app.

Devices

Until March 2015, Google Play had a "Devices" section for users to purchase Google Nexus devices, Chromebooks, Chromecasts, other Google-branded hardware, and accessories. A separate online hardware retailer called the Google Store was introduced on March 11, 2015, replacing the Devices section of Google Play.

From Wikipedia’s article on Google Play, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.⁴

Products and brands

Catalog content

Android applications

By the end of 2017, Google Play featured more than 3.5 million Android applications. After Google purged many apps from the Google Play Store starting in 2024, there were 1.68 million Android applications in 2024. As of 2017, developers in more than 150 locations could distribute apps on Google Play, though not every location supports merchant registration. Developers receive 85% of the application price, while the remaining 15% goes to the distribution partner and operating fees. Developers can set up sales, with the original price struck out and a banner underneath informing users when the sale ends. Google Play allows developers to release early versions of apps to a select group of users, as alpha or beta tests. Users can pre-order select apps (as well as movies, music, books, and games) to have the items delivered as soon as they are available. Some network carriers offer billing for Google Play purchases, allowing users to opt for charges in the monthly phone bill rather than on credit cards. Users can request refunds within 48 hours after a purchase.

Games

At the Google I/O 2013 Developer Conference, Google announced the introduction of Google Play Games. Google Play Games is an online gaming service for Android that features real-time multiplayer gaming capabilities, cloud saves, social and public leaderboards, and achievements. Its standalone mobile app was launched on July 24, 2013.

Books

Google Play Books is an ebook digital distribution service. Google Play offers over five million ebooks available for purchase, and users can also upload up to 1,000 of their own ebooks in the form of PDF or EPUB file formats. As of January 2017, Google Play Books is available in 75 countries.

Movies and TV shows

Google Play Movies & TV was a video on demand service offering movies and television shows available for purchase or rental, depending on availability.

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As of January 2017, movies are available in over 110 countries, while TV shows are available only in Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, the United States and the United Kingdom.

In October 2020, Google Play Movies & TV was renamed Google TV.

Google announced on March 22, 2022, that Google Play will remove Play Movies & TV from their store and will be moved to Google TV by May 2022.

Play Pass

On September 23, 2019, Google launched its Google Play Pass games and apps subscription service in the US. As of September 2019, subscribers could access the games and apps without ads and in-app purchases. The program is invitation-only for app developers, who then can integrate the service into their existing apps.

Device updates

Google introduced Project Mainline in Android 10, allowing core OS components to be updated via the Google Play Store, without requiring a complete system update.

Android 10 supports updates for core OS components including:

Security: Media Codecs, Media Framework Components, DNS Resolver, Conscrypt

Privacy: Documents UI, Permission Controller, ExtServices

Consistency: Time zone data, ANGLE (developers opt-in), Module Metadata, Networking components, Captive Portal Login, Network Permission Configuration

On December 4, 2019, Qualcomm announced their Snapdragon 865 supports GPU drivers updated via the Google Play Store. This feature was initially introduced with Android Oreo but vendors had not added support yet.

Teacher Approved

In 2020, Google launched a new children-focused 'Teacher Approved' section for the Google Play Store. Apps marked as 'Teacher Approved' meet higher standards approved for educational purposes.

Google Play Store on Android

Google Play Store, shortened to Play Store on the Home screen and App screen, is Google's official pre-installed app store on Android-certified devices. It provides access to content on Google Play, including apps, books, magazines, music, movies, and television programs. Devices do not ship with the Google Play Store in China, with manufacturers offering their own alternative.

Google Play Store filters the list of apps to those compatible with the user's device. Developers can target specific hardware components (such as compass), software components (such as widget), and Android versions (such as 7.0 Nougat). Carriers can also ban certain apps from being installed on users' devices, for example tethering applications.

There is no requirement that Android applications be acquired using the Google Play Store. Users may download Android applications from a developer's website or through a third-party app store alternative. Google Play Store applications are self-contained Android Package files (APK), similar to.exe files used to install programs on Microsoft Windows computers. On Android devices, an "Unknown sources" feature in Settings allows users to bypass the Google Play Store and install APKs from other sources. Depending on developer preferences, some apps can be installed to a phone's external storage card.

In 2020, Google decided to rewrite the Play Store app's UI code using Jetpack Compose, which was in pre-alpha at the time. It stated that the "existing code was 10+ years old and had incurred tremendous tech debt over countless Android platform releases and feature updates."

Installation history

The Google Play Store app features a history of all installed apps. Users can remove apps from the list, with the changes also synchronizing to the Google Play website interface, where the option to remove apps from the history does not exist.

Compatibility

Google publishes the source code for Android through its "Android Open Source Project", allowing enthusiasts and developers to program and distribute their own modified versions of the operating system. However, not all these modified versions are compatible with apps developed for Google's official Android versions. The "Android Compatibility Program" serves to "define a baseline implementation of Android that is compatible with third-party apps written by developers". Only Android devices that comply with Google's compatibility requirements may install and access the Google Play Store application. As stated in a help page for the Android Open Source Project, "Devices that are "Android compatible" may participate in the Android ecosystem, including Android Market; devices that don't meet the compatibility requirements exist outside that ecosystem. In other words, the Android Compatibility Program is how we separate "Android compatible devices" from devices that merely run derivatives of the source code. We welcome all uses of the Android source code, but only Android compatible devices—as defined and tested by the Android Compatibility Program—may participate in the Android ecosystem."

Since August 2019, all new and updated Google Play apps must have 64-bit binaries, with some exceptions. Since August 2021, Google Play will not serve apps that only have 32-bit binaries to devices compatible with 64-bit apps. This requirement does not apply to Android TV or Wear OS apps.

Google Play Services

In 2012, Google began decoupling certain aspects of its Android operating system (particularly its core applications) so they could be updated through the Google Play store independently of the OS. One of those components, Google Play Services, is a closed-source system-level process providing APIs for Google services, installed automatically on nearly all devices running Android 2.2 "Froyo" and higher. With these changes, Google can add new system functionality through Play Services and update apps without having to distribute an upgrade to the operating system itself. As a result, Android 4.2 and 4.3 "Jelly Bean" contained relatively fewer user-facing changes, focusing more on minor changes and platform improvements.