You can now buy stuff from Google Play using PayPal, just not hardware

This is interesting. Google will now let you pay for purchases on the Play store using PayPal. In an official blog post, Google says it hopes the new feature will help it expand international sales on the store.

According to the blog post, sales on the store have increased 300% over the past year, with two-thirds of Google Play purchases now happening outside of the United States.

To start with, the feature is being rolled out in 12 countries including the US, Germany, and Canada. When you make a purchase on Google Play in these countries, it says, you’ll find PayPal as an option in your Google Wallet. Tap on it, enter your PayPal account login and you’ll theoretically be able to make purchases pretty easily.

Google says its goal is to “provide users with a frictionless payment experience, and this new integration is another example of how we work with partners from across the payments industry to deliver this to the user”.

While, the news will be pretty welcome to PayPal loyalists, it’s worth noting that you won’t be able to buy physical goods on the Play store using the online payment service, only apps and other digital content.

Alongside the ability to buy content using PayPal, Google’s also expanded carrier billing — which lets people charge purchases in Google Play directly to their phone bill — seven more countries for a total of 24, including Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan.

According to Google, that means almost half of all Google Play users have this option when making their purchases. It’s also brought developer support and the ability localise pricing to a few markets that didn’t have them before.

The other markets to get PayPal integration are Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom.