Google Play Store adding prominent ‘Offers’ tab [Update: Rolling out]

Abner Li | Jan 22 2022 - 2:57 pm PT

Back in October, the Play Store got a Material You redesign that was pretty straightforward in that it only touched the homescreens. Google now looks to be adding an “Offers” tab to the Play Store that makes for a quite cluttered bottom bar.

Update 1/22/22: More people are seeing “Offers” in the Play Store, though it’s not yet widely available.

Sections we’re seeing in this tab today include a prominent “Watch on HBO Max and save,” “Offers for apps you might like,” “Offers for games you might like,” “Games on sale,” “Deals on movie purchases,” “Offers on movie rentals,” and “Ebook deals under $5.”

The addition of a fifth item does not truncate “Movies & TV” on large devices like the Pixel 6 Pro.

Original 11/21/21: Most people have four tabs in the bottom bar of the Play Store. If you subscribe to Play Pass, it grows to five. The default could soon be five for all users with “Offers” slotting in-between “Apps” and “Movies & TV,” which gets horribly truncated in the process. It uses a standard price tag icon and could result in a maximum of six items, but Google will presumably move Play Pass in that case.

It shows “Offers for apps you might like,” as well as the “Games” equivalent. Carousels with cover images that are larger than usual advertise the deal in question and expiration date, with the standard app information appearing below.

Despite the name, this differs from the “Offers & notifications” page in the app menu, and it’s more analogous to cards that advertise “Limited-time events” in the Games feed. It’s unclear whether end-users will benefit from this change, but developers will get a surface that is more prominent than app listings.

This “Offers” tab for the Google Play Store is not yet widely rolled out on the devices we checked today, and we’ve only seen one report of it so far. As such, it’s unclear if this is an A/B test or a finalized feature.