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Google Play Finally Opens Monetization Scope For Indian App Developers
Yes, it is official: Indian App developers have something to cheer after a lot of jeers! Yester noon (PST), Ibrahim Elbouchikhi – Product Manager on the Google Play team, blogged about this official confirmation wherein app developers from India can now sell in-app subscriptions, digital content, products, services, etc. on Google Play Store. In the past, any such wannabe developer would have needed a bank account and residential proof of UK, USA and a handful of other countries – to reap the benefits of Google Checkout and in revenue based app development, based on a Business-to-Consumer (B2C) model.
This move has been much anticipated by most industry experts who have observed that it was a twilight time for Google to see the mass frenzy over Android based products in India. The fact that Ibrahim appreciates, the 400% rise in Android activations in the past year alone have pushed India into becoming the 4th largest market globally for app downloads, makes for a strong argument. Indian developers, willing to ride this new wave, must log into their Google Developer console and activate Google Checkout Merchant Accounts. Apparently, one needs to pay a single time registration fee of $25 to Google, for enabling them.
While all this is so exciting, this move did not come as a single fold announcement – as it may seem. Early into the last week of September this year, reports began trickling of Google informally activating this support on Google Play for Indian developers. This seems to have been triggered by the event of India’s name featuring among 32 countries which were declared the eligible nationality for Google Checkout Merchant registrations.
However, much to the dismay – new registration attempts by many Indians were not processed, raising doubts whether this was taking more time than presumed.
All hell broke loose among the developers and their forums when it was found a couple of days ago, that India did not feature on the list anymore. Much jeers were drawn upon Google, some blogs even called this a joke or a cheap trick by Google on India. But now with this formal announcement, things are looking promising and up for the Indian software startup, more than they ever did. Amidst continuous funding and venture capitalism developments we have seen this year, like in case of Simplify360, Flipkart, Jabong, Hungama.com, etc., this development can rather see a bunch of yet to graduate college students, much like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg – come into the cynosure of young billionaires.
Will India finally have it big break in the World of Internet Entrepreneurs – sans the brain drain element?
Image Courtesy | gizbot
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2012-10-19 19:09:25
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