Mobility broke the news today that one of its contributors was able to buy Android App with Nigeria bank issued naira denominated credit/debit card. They captured a user, Karmawa, who actually did make a purchase with evidence of completing the transaction. The really good part is that you can price the product in naira.
So, paid Android apps are within the reach of Android developers like our parent company, Fasmicro. They are having a meeting now on a change in strategy, considering that they plan to build a local app store on Android. Yet, that will still happen since not many Nigerians have access to credit cards or Google checkout that will be needed for the apps purchase.
Fasmicro will put the apps in the Android store as early as next week. And the apps store will be up within a week (the team has finally decided to remove 3 apps for the Google App Challenge).
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Google is coming late on this game. But we are happy that it has arrived. As the market share is estimated to continue to increase, it will be unfair to keep Nigerian developers out of this domain. Blackberry and Nokia have been doing this for ages in Africa. In Kenya, especially, Ovi is pretty common.
This is the official press release from Google on this giant progress
Support for paid Android apps to consumers in 26 new African countries
12th May 2011 – Today Google announced that Android Market will increase consumer access and developer support for paid applications in several new countries. From today, consumers from 99 new countries – including 26 African countries – will be able to purchase apps from Android Market. This latest expansion of Android Market means more applications – including games, social, and productivity apps – for consumers and more selling opportunities for developers in more countries.
Over the next few days, the number of countries where Android users can purchase priced apps will increase to 131 including the addition of South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria. Consumers from these newly supported countries will have access to over 200,000 free and paid apps in Android Market, which they can access directly from their Android-powered device.
Android Market was launched to help developers distribute mobile applications on a level playing field, while enabling users to find and download apps which leverage the unique capabilities of the Android platform. Today, we’re pleased to announce the expansion of Android Market’s offerings in these additional countries to deliver more apps for more people.
A full list of countries can be found here: https://www.google.com/support/androidmarket/developer/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138294
(Nigeria is in the list)
