If you are a developer in Kenya, you know that for years, you could only have your apps on the Google Play Store as long as they are free. You could register for a Google Play developer account but could not get a merchant account. The merchant account is the one you want if you want to distribute paid applications on the Play Store. Think of apps that you have to pay to download, how many of these have you seen that have been made by Kenya developers, not that many right?
If you were not happy about this, the good news is that things are changing. Kenya is among the four countries that are getting proper merchant account registration support. The other three include Zambia, Cambodia and Uzbekistan. The other African countries that have had support for Google Play merchant accounts include Zimbabwe, Tunisia, Tanzania, Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria. As you can see, Merchant accounts are not supported in many African countries and this is not good for the independent developers in these countries.
This move by Google is important for developers who have always wanted to build premium apps that users pay for. Local developers had to find other means to make money with their apps and most of them had to stick with displaying ads in their applications. This is not the most ideal way for those who wanted to build premium apps or games that users have to buy. The good news is that things are changing.
Still on paid apps, the ability to distribute them through the play store is for you to reach a bigger global audience and you just do not have to build apps for Kenyans only as some people may imagine. As long as your app is good and makes sense, someone from the other side of the world can pay for it and this can add up if your app is really good.
As expected, developers will be paid in US dollars but I don’t think this will be a deal breaker for anyone. We may talk about local currencies in the future but right now this is the kind of news local developers have been looking forward to.
If you want to get started, here is a link for you to register.
Also Read: Google Play Services Is The First App To Cross The 5 Billion Installs Mark
