Google Play celebrates first birthday with discounts and giveaways

It has already been a year since the Android Market was re-christened as the Google Play Store and to celebrate its first birthday, Google is giving away a number of offers and discounts on books, apps and movies throughout this week.

The giveaways currently revolve around game exclusives, in-app purchases and discounts, but Google has hinted at more freebies throughout its birthday week. You should note that these offers will vary from market to market and country to country, but we hope Google will come up with at least a few offers that encompass all markets. 

Happy Birthday Play Store!

Google has set up a whole new page dedicated to promoting the birthday offers. The Google Play Team writes, “It was just a year ago today that we launched this amazing shop on the interwebs to offer the best in digital content. Since the best parties are the ones that send you home with a present, today we celebrate our birthday with a festive goodie bag full of gifts. Don’t delay in picking up these limited-time offers. It’s been an incredible first year and we look forward to sharing the gift of digital diversions for many more to come.”

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The store may have offers for books in India, considering it launched Google Play Books here only last week. If you now head over to Google Play, if you haven’t already, you’ll see that the interface has been re-arranged to include a new section— Books. The Play Store now has two sections: Apps and Books. Selecting Apps will take you to the old app store, where you can download apps and games, while selecting Books will take you to Google Play Books, where you can browse through and download books.

The Play Books app is also available for download on the Google Play store. The app itself is free to download, but you need to download or add books to read them.

Google Play Books has a wide variety of books you can buy or download for free. Like the rest of Google Play, Books too has been arranged in various sections, including Top Selling, Top Free, New Arrivals in Fiction and New Arrivals in Non-Fiction. You can also browse through categories such as Biographies, Children’s Books, Cooking, Fiction & Literature, History and Romance.

Current offers that go beyond in-app purchases are mainly US-centric, with free shipping in the country and 10 percent off on travel and stay if you book travel using the Hotels.com app. Here’s hoping India gets more offers in the coming birthday week.