Google is finally on par with Apple and Amazon, though still far behind in market share

Oct 30, 2012 16:21 GMT  ·  By

Google is trying to take on Apple and Amazon with its Play Store, but it's a tough battle. Even Amazon, which has been at it for years, only has a small market share of the digital music sales for example.

What's more, up until now, Google didn't even have deals with all of the major record labels, meaning it had a significantly reduced music selection on sale.

That's changed now as Google has finally signed with Warner Music Group, which means songs from artists like Green Day, Madonna and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are now finally available for sale in the Play store.

"We’ve partnered with Warner Music Group who will be adding their full music catalog with new songs coming each day," Google's Android boss Andy Rubin said, buried deep in the post announcing the new Nexus line.

"We’re now working with all of the major record labels globally, and all the major U.S. magazine publishers, as well as many independent labels, artists and publishers," he added.

Google also said that it was opening up its media section of the Play Store to more countries. Specifically, people in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy will be able to buy music from the store. Google is also expanding movie sales to Canada, UK, France, Spain and Australia.

Another first, Google is also finally making it possible to "match" the songs you have on your computer in the cloud storage service it offers.

Google Music enables users to upload the songs they already own and listen to them online on any device. But, up until now, this meant uploading thousands or tens of thousands of songs, a very slow process.

In the meantime, both Apple and Amazon enabled users to "match" the songs they owned, i.e. add all of their songs to their cloud storage instantly without actually uploading them.