Google Play Affiliate Programme Reportedly in the Works

Google is said to be working on an affiliate programme for Google Play that will allow independent developers, content creators, website owners, and companies to be paid a commission whenever a user clicks into Google's store through them and makes a purchase. The report citing sources briefed on the matter claims that Google will start its affiliate programme initially by only selling content via its Play Movies and Play Music stores, but expand to other sections later on.
(Also see: Google Play leads App Store in downloads, catching up on revenues: Report)

9to5google reports that the new affiliate programme from Google is still in early stages of development and may be "called off or change significantly between now and its time of launch." The report adds that the programme is powered by the same company that began supporting Apple's affiliate programme in 2013, the Performance Horizon Group. Apart from Movies and Music, the affiliate programme is likely to expand to include apps and even hardware (especially to include devices sold via Google Store), added sources.

When 9to5google reached out to Performance Horizon Group to enquire about Google's affiliate programme existence for Play Store, the company replied thanking the team for reaching out about the 'Google Play affiliate program', and forwarded the inquiry to the 'Google Play affiliate team' with a specific play-affiliates-help@google.com email address - hinting Google might be working on something related. To recall, Google announced Affiliate Network shutdown back in 2013, at the same time the Android Market was rebranded to Google Play.

(Also see: Google Study Finds 5.5 Percent of Its Users Are Affected by Ad Injectors)

We will have to still wait for Google's confirmation on the affiliate programme for Google Play. Earlier this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that the App Store achieved record-setting revenue numbers in July.