Google Expanding International Access to Android Market

Don’t ask me why but for a good while Google had left most foreign users in the dark from buying paid apps and foreign developers from selling their own apps on the Android market hurting developer sales and general user experience. There are tools like MarketAccess, which emulates the phone having a US SIM in it, on which I relied while in Asia recently, but I suspect only a handful of the world’s Android lovers is as savvy as I am to find and install such a thing.

But those masquerading apps on their way to obsolescence as Google is rapidly opening the doors of paid application patronage to thirty two countries and paid application sales to twenty nine, with a significant portion of those countries added just recently, and Google noting their commitment “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. Please stay tuned.”

I don’t have the numbers in front of me but what I can tell you from my recent travels is that there are plenty of people on the planet outside of the States, some of whom presumably have or will buy an Android phone; and with such market access being granted to them to buy and develop, that’s good news for everyone – everyone except Google’s competitors.

Doug Simmons