Amazon today announced the expansion of their global Appstore which will encompass nearly 200 countries in the coming months as the company continues the rollout for international customers. It's a significant number when you consider that Google only sells apps in 134 countries while the United Nations has fewer than 200 member states.
In the near future, the Amazon Appstore for Android will be available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, India, South Africa, South Korea and even Papua New Guinea and Vatican City. These countries join some other recent entrants including the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan, Amazon pointed out in a press release on the matter. Interestingly enough, Amazon only sells Kindle Fire hardware in a fraction of these countries.
The online retailer further notes that registered developers will have their apps automatically made available for international distribution unless they designate otherwise. Given the opportunity to share apps with even more potential customers, we can't imagine why a developer wouldn't be interested in international distribution.
New developers will have access to Amazon's large customer base and e-commerce features like Amazon's APIs for In-App Purchasing (IAP), 1-Click purchasing and GameCircle. A recent study of more than 500 games using in-app purchases showed that titles utilizing GameCircle earned 83 percent more average revenue per user than non-GameCircle games - good news if you are a developer.
Amazon didn't give a specific timeframe for the global rollout other than "the coming months."