Google brings local payment for Android apps to Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia

update: To clarify our earlier report, Google has rolled local payments for

developers in four countries — the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and

Malaysia — not 25 countries. The other countries have been given the option

to set prices in their local currency, while developers based in *some* of them

can use local payment options.

Google has added local payment support for Android apps in a 25 new

countries. The important move will not only allow users in these countries to

buy apps and in-app content in their local currency, but also enables

developers to monetize their apps more efficiently.

The addition of the new countries — spotted by Android Police — comes less

than a week after the story of one developer from Croatia and his issues with

payments gained prominence among developer circles. Goran Kukurin, who is

behind Worldscope Webcams, had his app removed from Google Play because

it was using PayPal to let users upgrade to an ad-free experience.

PayPal, and other payment systems, are barred from Android apps but, as he

explained last week, Kukurin was not eligible to offer payments in his local

currency so he opted for a third party:

The official reason was a violation of a developer distribution agreement – we

have offered to our users a possibility to remove ads by buying a registration

code via PayPal. Buying Ad-free version via Google play store was not

possible, because our country is not on the list of supported locations for

merchants which are allowed to sell paid applications on Google store.

Worldscope Webcams has since been reinstated but the issue is now fixed for

Kukurin — Croatia is on the list. the issue not fixed for Kukurin because

Croatia is not on the list. However, Android developers in Philippines,

Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia can now reach users in over 130 countries

with paid-for apps, in addition to free apps, as Google points out.

The full list of countries with the option to set prices in their local currency

is as follows, some but not all already have local payment options for

developers:

Australia, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Indonesia,

Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines,

Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab

Emirates, Venezuela and Vietnam.