Finally,Google Supports Selling Of Paid Apps In India!

Bangalore,India: The word has come straight from the horse's mouth. On the Android Developer Blog, Ibrahim Elbouchikhi(Product Manager,Google Play) has announced that “Starting today, developers in India can sell paid applications, in-app products, and subscriptions in Google Play, with monthly payouts to their local bank accounts.“ This means that Android developers in India can now publish apps on the Google Play store at a price. The post also confirmed that buyer currency support has started in India,which means consumers can purchase apps in Rupees directly, rather than converted values from foreign currencies.

We spoke with M Thiyagarajan (Co-Founder, Mobile Monday Bangalore) to get his take on how it could affect monetization potential in the Android market. He said “The fact is, the Indian developer community has wanted this for a while. There was actually a group of Android developers in Bangalore who signed a petition for this to happen.”. He added that “Lot of people developing for iOS will now go for Android”, as Indian developers now have more options for monetization in the Android space.He added that Indian developers had “pent-up demand for this change so it's very good for the developer community”. Existing Android developers in India can log into their developer console,and set up a Google merchant checkout account. If the developer has already published an app as free, they can still monetize by adding in-app products or subscriptions.