Google Play Celebrates 25 Billion Downloads With 25-Cent Apps

Google on Wednesday announced that its Google Play app store has officially hit the 25 billion app download mark. The store is now home to 675,000 apps and games for Android devices.

To celebrate, Google is offering special app discounts for the next five days. The Web giant will be selling apps from top developers like Gameloft, Electronic Arts, Rovio, runtastic, Full Fat and more for just 25 cents. Android users will also be able to get special deals on collections like "25 movies you must own," "25 banned books," "25 albums that changed the world," and "25 top selling magazines."

"Twenty-five billion is more than twice the distance, in miles, that the Voyager 1 spacecraft has travelled since its launch 35 years ago," Jamie Rosenberg, Google's director of digital content, said in a statement. "It's the amount of time, in minutes, that have passed since some of our earliest ancestors began to set foot in Europe. And now, thanks to all of you, it's a Google Play milestone. We look forward to the next 25 billion."

Google isn't the first app store to reach that target. Apple's iOS App Store crossed 25 billion app downloads back in March. Apple awarded Chunli Fu of Qingdao, a city in eastern China, a $10,000 prize for being the 25 billionth app customer. Fu had downloaded a free version of Disney's physics-based puzzle game Where's My Water?

At Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) back in June, CEO Tim Cook said the company's App Store now boasts 650,000 available apps, and that users have downloaded 30 billion apps.