In a race to close the gap on Apple’s App Store, Google Inc yesterday announced that developers from 20 countries, including Taiwan, could start developing and selling applications on Android Market. Taiwanese consumers will also be able to purchase apps on Android Market over the next two weeks.
Introduced in August 2008, -Android Market now offers more than 80,000 apps to download for free or at a fee. The number still lags a long way behind the 250,000 apps available at the App Store.
The announcement yesterday meant Google’s “paid apps support” will be expanded to developers in 20 more markets, increasing the total to 29 markets worldwide.
The new markets include Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.
“We are committed to the rollout,” Google Taiwan’s head of communications Caroline Hsu (許佳齡) said.
“In the past two years, our aim was to gear up to launch as many Android devices as possible. The rollout process for more developers to join Android Market and buyers to buy apps took time,” she said.
Google said that to date, more than 90 smartphones run on its Android operating system in 49 countries.
According to industry estimates, the Android platform offers more than 80,000 application programs, while Research In Motion’s Blackberry App World allows users to download more than 10,000 programs. Both, however, are still far behind Apple’s App Store which has more than 250,000 programs.
Google Taiwan said that Taiwanese developers will have to register with Google if they plan to upload and sell their apps on Android Market.
Developers are free to determine the prices of their apps, within a range of US$0.99 to US$200, it said.
Developers will take 70 percent of the money, while the rest goes to Google.
Hsu said Google welcomed any form of app upload to Android Market and would remove any deemed inappropriate if complaints were received.
Over the next two weeks, users in 18 additional markets will be able to purchase apps from -Android Market. That means a total of 32 markets could soon buy Android apps.
These include Taiwan, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, India, Russia and Singapore.
“We remain committed to continuing to improve the buyer and seller experiences on Android Market. Among other initiatives, we look forward to bringing the Android Market paid apps ecosystem to even more countries in the coming months,” Google said in its Android Developers’ blog.
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