This article was published on January 26, 2012

Microsoft takes its Windows Phone ad solution pubCenter to 7 new countries


Microsoft takes its Windows Phone ad solution pubCenter to 7 new countries

Every new platform has a phase of ‘ramping up,’ during which it slowly expands its reach and, therefore, its potential. Ad platforms nearly always go through this sort of thing, as they slip into new markets, following fresh contracts and dollars.

Today, Microsoft expanded pubCenter, which serves up ads for Windows Phone apps, to seven new countries: “Denmark, Hong Kong, Japan, India, Mexico, Sweden, and Switzerland.” This brings the total number of countries that pubCenter is available in to nineteen.

Microsoft touts its pubCenter solution for developers as “built right into the Windows Phone SDK,” which helps to “ensure a seamless experience.” This is more important than you might expect. Given that many apps are still released in free form, which is to say without a cost, they have to be monetized in another fashion. The stronger an ad platform that is available for a mobile platform, the more attractive developing for it will be.

Therefore, by adding another seven easy-to-monetize countries to its roster, Microsoft has boosted the larger Windows Phone platform; what is more attractive to developers always ends up being more attractive to consumers, when app stores are involved. For reference, here are all the supported countries:

It’s a small, but somewhat important step for Windows Phone in the long term: more countries means more apps in more languages, which will do nothing but help move more handsets.

As a short aside, I’ll be on the Windows Phone Dev podcast later, talking about this and other changes to the larger Windows Phone line. You can tune in here, or hit the archives later for a copy. The Windows Phone Dev guys are a real asset to the larger community.

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