Google brings local payment for Android apps to Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia

Update: To clarify our earlier report, Google has rolled local payments for developers in four countries — the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia — not 25 countries. The other countries have been given the option to set prices in their local currency, while developers based in *some* of them can use local payment options.

Google has added local payment support for Android apps in a 25 new countries. The important move will not only allow users in these countries to buy apps and in-app content in their local currency, but also enables developers to monetize their apps more efficiently.

The addition of the new countries — spotted by Android Police — comes less than a week after the story of one developer from Croatia and his issues with payments gained prominence among developer circles. Goran Kukurin, who is behind Worldscope Webcams, had his app removed from Google Play because it was using PayPal to let users upgrade to an ad-free experience.

PayPal, and other payment systems, are barred from Android apps but, as he explained last week, Kukurin was not eligible to offer payments in his local currency so he opted for a third party:

The official reason was a violation of a developer distribution agreement – we have offered to our users a possibility to remove ads by buying a registration code via PayPal. Buying Ad-free version via Google play store was not possible, because our country is not on the list of supported locations for merchants which are allowed to sell paid applications on Google store.

Worldscope Webcams has since been reinstated but the issue is now fixed for Kukurin — Croatia is on the list. the issue not fixed for Kukurin because Croatia is not on the list. However, Android developers in Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia can now reach users in over 130 countries with paid-for apps, in addition to free apps, as Google points out.

The full list of countries with the option to set prices in their local currency is as follows, some but not all already have local payment options for developers:

Australia, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Indonesia, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and Vietnam.

Image via etnyk / Flickr