Google Play Music, (paid) Newsstand rolls out in more countries

It might be taking them some time to reach most of the countries, but at least they’re getting there. Google announced that they were adding more countries where some of their content were previously unavailable. Japan can now access Google Play Music and paid content on the Newsstand, while Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand also can now buy magazines, newspapers, other paid content on the Newsstand. It looks like Asian countries are the target for Google as previous updates have also seen more countries from the region getting content from them.

What’s surprising with this news though is that Japanese users previously couldn’t buy music from Google. Being one of the world’s biggest music consumers should have made Japan a shoo-in when it comes to countries that could have access to Google Play Music. Probably one of the reasons is that the Japanese music market is a weird one (and we don’t mean in a bad way) as sales of CDs and albums from their local artists are almost as high as digital sales.

When it comes to paid content on Google Newsstand, where there isn’t really a huge clamor for it, but at least countries like Japan, Malaysia and Thailand now have an option to buy their online newspapers and magazines from there.

The addition of these countries now brings Google Play Newsstand to 24 countries in total, while Google Play Music subscriptions can now be found in 60 countries worldwide. Good news for those who wanted to subscribe to the newly-announced Play Music Family plans.

SOURCE: Google