San Francisco, Sep 27 (IANS): Google announced Wednesday that its online store for media and applications Google Play has hit 25 billion downloads.

To celebrate the milestone, Google said it will discount a variety of popular apps which will be on sale for 25 cents apiece, reported Xinhua.

The company is also promoting special collections at special prices like 25 movies you must own, 25 banned books, 25 albums that changed the world and the store's 25 top selling magazines.

"We look forward to the next 25 billion," Google said in its official blog post.

Google Play was introduced in March when Google merged the Android Market and Google Music services. It is a digital distribution service, including a music player and an online store for music, movies, books, magazines and applications for Google's mobile system Android.

Since the launch of Android Market in 2008, it took 1,435 days for Google to reach the 25 billion downloads. Apple's App Store, Google's major competitor, hit the milestone in 1,334 days.

Google Play currently has 675,000 apps and game, while Apple's App Store plays host to 700,000.