Although Google has always allowed purchasing apps from India in Indian Rupees, Android developers in India had a difficult time monetizing their apps because they were unable to sell paid applications. This restriction mostly came due to the fact that developers in India were not allowed to register as Google Checkout merchants and hence receive payments from the Google Play store. Most such developers had to rely on monetizing apps with advertisements or earn money by developing for third parties. This had severely limited the potential of a market where there is a lot of boom in the mobile and software industry.
But now that Google has added India to the list of countries for supported locations of Google Checkout, we can now expect to see a lot more activity in the Android app development sphere here. Besides India, countries like Israel, Poland, Czech Republic and Mexico were also added back in April. This will not only enable them to sell paid apps, but also allow for in-app purchases. This should open up new opportunities for individual developers and software development companies to explore sustainable ideas in a market that is largely dominated by Android due to its availability on cheap handsets and smartphones.
Hopefully, these new developments will allow for more apps focused on India and improve the overall quality of the apps that are already available as more and more Indian developers start investing their time and efforts on this platform with profit in mind. Of course, this will surely have a huge impact on the developer ecosystem in the country and might trickle down to affect Android’s market share in country.
UPDATE: Google has reverted the changes to this list. No clarifications have been made as of now. More details are awaited.
