Google plans to pay Android application developers starting in the first quarter of 2009 for each application sold, with 70% of the proceedings to the developer, and to keep 30% for itself, to cover carrier and billing-settlement fees.
In an email from the Android Market, Eric Chu said:
"Android Market will support priced applications starting early Q1 2009, as we"d originally stated last fall. Given the country-by-country work required to set up payment support for developers in different countries, we will enable priced app support in Q1 for developers operating in these countries, in the following order: (1) United States and UK; (2) Germany, Austria and Netherlands; (3) France, Italy and Spain."
This policy change to Google"s growing app store, to compete with the already very successful Apple iPhone AppStore, could bring forth a new number of developers to help increase the number of applications in its marketplace, helping to push creativity in the global trend of mobile applications.
It is no surprise Google has entered the market of paying developers for per application sold, where consumers see no problem on purchasing applications, games and other content for their mobile phones. Developers have also been patiently waiting to release their applications on the Blackberry Application store.