New Delhi — Indian developers can now rejoice as Google has finally announced that developers and mobility content development companies in the country can begin selling Android apps on Google’s Android platform, Google Play App store.
While paid Android apps have been available since 2009, but developers from India could only offer their apps for free downloads on the Google Play platform, or alternatively have to incorporate in another country or create foreign bank accounts in order to accept payments for their apps.
But seeing the market grow extensively, the search engine giant has finally included India in the list of countries from where developers can register as Google Checkout merchants and sell paid applications on the Play store. This means that developers from India will now be able to sell paid apps on the Google Play Store and more importantly they will be able to sell them in the local currency — Rupees.
Google will make monthly payouts to local bank accounts, according to the announcement. Existing apps can only be monetized via in-app payments or subscription services, but newly published apps can be sold for a one-time purchase price. In fact, this unlocks the doors for Indian developers to monetize their work, and for local businesses to take advantage of the Play Store marketplace.
According to Ibrahim Elbouchikhi, Product Manager on the Google Play team, who made the official announcement on Android Developers Blog this week said:
“Developers in India can sell paid applications, in-app products, and subscriptions in Google Play, with monthly payouts to their local bank accounts. They can take advantage of all of the tools offered by Google Play to monetize their products in the best way for their businesses, and they can target their products to the paid ecosystem of hundreds of millions of users in India and across the world.”
Additionally, the apps can be priced “in any available currencies,” with payments and financial reports being provided in the local currency. Also, in the new seller support, Google has also incorporated ‘Buyer’s Currency’ support for developers in India. This allows apps to be sold in multiple currencies, such as Rupees and USD, for example. Developers have up till October 25 to fix the INR prices for their apps, if failed to do so, Google will automatically assign INR pricing to their apps every month.
Since early this year, Android device usage in India has ballooned to more than 400 percent, resulting in millions of new users and “huge increases in app downloads” via the Play Store, according to Google’s Android blog.
As a matter of fact, during the past six months, Android users in India downloaded more apps than in the previous three years combined, and India has soared to become the fourth-largest market worldwide for app downloads. To help developers capitalize on this tremendous growth, we are launching Google Play seller support in India, Google said in a blog post.
To know more about the Google Play Seller Support in India here.