Google Play has a lot of users – 1 billion active ones according to Google, and they’re spread across 190 countries. There’s a lot of apps in there, and to make it easier to search Google is adding more categories for developers to target.
In their latest Android Developers blog, Google has announced that the new app categories will be ‘more comprehensive and relevant to what users are looking for today’. The full list of app categories coming to Google Play include:
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Art & Design | Sketchbooks, painter tools, art & design tools, colouring books |
| Auto & Vehicles | Auto shopping, auto insurance, auto price comparison, road safety, auto reviews & news |
| Beauty | Makeup tutorials, makeover tools, hair styling, beauty shopping, makeup simulators |
| Dating | Matchmaking, courtship, relationship building, meeting new people, finding love |
| Events | Concert tickets, sporting event tickets, ticket resales, movie tickets |
| Food & Drink | Recipes, restaurants, food guides, wine tasting & discovery, beverage recipes |
| House & Home | House & apartment search, home improvement, interior decoration, mortgages, real estate |
| Parenting | Pregnancy, infant care & monitoring, childcare |
Google will also be renaming categories, with the “Transportation” category becoming “Maps & Navigation, while “Media & Video” category will be renamed “Video Players & Editors”.
The new categories will be appearing on the Play Store within 60 days, but developers can begin re-classifying their apps now, though Google warns that: ‘If you choose a newly added category for an app before the category is available for users, your current app category may change’.
