Amazon woos Indian developers

April 20, 2013 11:09 pm | Updated 11:10 pm IST - CHENNAI

CHENNAI,20/04/2013:Amazon Final.Photo:Handout_E_Mail

CHENNAI,20/04/2013:Amazon Final.Photo:Handout_E_Mail

E-commerce giant Amazon has joined the race to woo Indian mobile application developers with the launch of its Android app store in the country. The competition to attract developers and cash in on sale of content and mobile applications has seen Google, Apple and Microsoft, who have all launched their respective stores in India, fight it out fiercely in recent times.

Indian developers will now be able to submit their apps to Amazon for distribution by registering and paying an annual development fee of $99 (approx Rs. 5,334).

“This platform is a complete end-to-end solution for developers wanting to build, market, and monetize their apps on Kindle and Android devices. Amazon developers throughout the world are experiencing strong monetisation, and we want to bring that to India,” said Mike George, Vice-President of Apps and Games, in a statement.

While the company is currently not offering the ability to price the application in rupees, a feature that Google and Apple already offer, Amazon may introduce it a few months down the line. The recent tie-up with distributor Redington India, and the launch of the app store, the company launched its Kindle e-reader devices here last year, hint at a possible India rollout of Amazon’s Android tablet— the Kindle Fire.

“The app store’s success has largely been driven by Amazon’s large customer base and gaming experience found on our Kindle Fire. The store will allow developers to take advantage of our in-app purchasing, A/B testing and GameCircle,” the company said.

While Amazon extended its Kindle e-book store to India last August, rivals Apple and Google have already started offering other content forms such as music, movie and television programmes in a bid to tap into the largely under-penetrated Indian market.

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