In an effort to highlight the recently announced sales on Google Play store, the platform has added a news section categorized as ‘Free app of the week’. As the name suggests, every week, the section would have a new app listed under it, and for those seven days, the paid app will be available to download for free.
Although, the Indian Google Play Store still does not reflect the section, according to an Android Police article, ‘Card Wars – Adventure Time’ is presently the app of the week in the US. Otherwise priced for $2.99, right now the app is available for free. Although, it isn’t clear how the featured selection is done or what happens after the week is over, it’s likely to return to its original pricing, and a new app gets listed under the category. The feature was first rolled out last week, with ‘Ultimate Guitar Tabs & Chords’ to be the first app to go up under the section.
The ‘recently announced sales on Google Play store’ that we mentioned earlier, were announced last month. Google started testing a few new sale features on the Play Store, wherein, select developers were able to set sale prices that showed up on the purchase button, and paid listings could be temporarily free. And the ‘free app of the week’ category looks like an extension of the same.
However, it is important to understand that this sale system works on a Pricing and Distribution concept. When setting a sale, a developer can choose between one and eight days. Each app can only be placed on sale once every 30 days. Developers have always been able to change their pricing before, but these tools include proper support in the way prices are displayed in the Play Store. With the 30-day policy, the method behind selecting the ‘free app of the week’ can somewhat be understood.
Whenever this section rolls out in India, it is likely to be very popular among users in the country. According to analytics firm App Annie, India edged past the US to become the top country that registered 6 billion downloads from Google’s Play Store in 2016. “India’s app market grew massively outpacing the US to surpass it as the #1 country by Google Play downloads, from around 3.5 billion downloads in 2015 to over 6 billion downloads in 2016,” the report read.
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