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Google Play hits 25bn downloads

To celebrate 25 billion app downloads, Google Play is offering a selection of paid apps for just AU$0.25 apiece.

Michelle Starr Science editor
Michelle Starr is CNET's science editor, and she hopes to get you as enthralled with the wonders of the universe as she is. When she's not daydreaming about flying through space, she's daydreaming about bats.
Michelle Starr

To celebrate 25 billion app downloads, Google Play is offering a selection of paid apps for just AU$0.25 apiece.

(Credit: Google)

Over the next five days, a new selection of apps will be available daily for AU$0.25 apiece. The sale is in celebration of its 25 billion app downloads, according to a post on the Google Play Google+ account.

The first collection includes Asphalt 7, Runtastic Pro, Granny Smith and Angry Birds Space.

Google will also be collating special collections at reduced prices. These will include:

  • 25 movies you must own

  • 25 banned books

  • 25 albums that changed the world

  • 25 top selling magazines on Google Play.

Google is catching up to Apple rapidly — in December last year, it reported that it had hit the 10 billion download mark, while Apple reached 25 billion just four months later, in March of this year. In 10 months, Google Play has more than doubled its download figure — it took Apple fourteen months to make the same increase. And that's just downloads from Google Play.

Google is also catching up in terms of numbers, with 675,000 apps in its store, compared to Apple's 700,000.

Meanwhile, BlackBerry and Windows Phone are bringing up the rear — the former with 3 billion app downloads as of July and a marketplace of 90,000 apps, the latter with 100,000 apps as of June (download data is unavailable).

You can take advantage of Google's celebratory app sale here.