Looking at Google Play's most popular content over the past 5 years

By Andrew Martonik
last updated

Google Play has been around for five years now — a surprisingly long time — and to celebrate, Google has compiled multiple lists of the top five pieces of content in each part of the store. Games, apps, songs, albums, movies and books are the big categories here, and the lists round out just about as you'd expect.

Top installed games

  1. Candy Crush Saga
  2. Subway Surfers
  3. Temple Run 2
  4. Despicable Me
  5. Clash of Clans

Top installed apps (not including pre-installed apps)

  1. Facebook
  2. Facebook Messenger
  3. Pandora Radio
  4. Instagram
  5. Snapchat

Top selling songs

  1. Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud
  2. Lorde - Royals
  3. Taylor Swift - Blank Space
  4. Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars - Uptown Funk
  5. Pharrell Williams - Happy

Top selling albums

  1. Adele - 25
  2. Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP2 (Deluxe)
  3. Taylor Swift - 1989
  4. Drake - If You're Reading This It's Too Late
  5. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly

Top selling movies

  1. The Interview
  2. Frozen
  3. Deadpool
  4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
  5. Guardians of the Galaxy

Top selling books

  1. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E L James
  2. The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
  3. A Game of Thrones, by George RR Martin
  4. The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green
  5. Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

Do any of the top charts stand out to you? Everything seems about as you'd think if you were asked blind what would top the list on the Play Store. If you want to download any of this top content for yourself, Google Play has a handy page with all of it in one place (opens in new tab).

Andrew Martonik
Andrew Martonik

Andrew was an Executive Editor, U.S. at Android Central between 2012 and 2020.

18 Comments
  • The Interview came out at number one movie? That one is a bit surprising.
  • I think it was offered as a free movie at one point.
  • I think it was free at one point.
  • MMLP2 made the top 5? That's cool. The installed games and apps is kinda expected though.
  • I honestly expected pokemon go to be on there because it's all I ever bloody heard about...
  • 5 years. It has not been released long enough, I imagine.
  • Neither was Snapchat
  • Snapchat has been on android for 4 and half years though
  • 10/29/12 vs. 7/6/16 for the release dates.
  • I expected Angry birds for sure. Not top 5? That doesn't sound right.
  • Maybe because of the number of AB games
  • Facebook has been preinstalled on so many of my phone's for many years. How is it not considered a preinstalled app?
  • I bet it doesn't account for re-installs
  • Holy sh*t, I must not be a person. I have absolutely nothing they have listed here.
  • I have 4 of the 5 apps installed. And.That's.It.
  • Kendrick ayyyy
  • I'm proud that I didn't contribute to anything on these lists.
  • I'm pleased to see that I have nothing from any of those lists too, other than Subway Surfers which my daughter plays on my phone from time to time.