In one of its biggest announcements, which will affect thousands of app developers in India, Google announced that Google Play is expanding its third-party billing pilot program to India and four other countries – Australia, Indonesia, Japan and the European Economic Area.
Earlier this year, Google Play announced additional billing options in South Korea and started a pilot with Spotify. The company then explained that it would also carry out a small pilot project in other countries.
This basically means that non-gaming developers in India can now have the option to provide users with third-party billing systems. Developers in India have long been demanding that Google Play allow third-party billing options.
In a statement, a Google spokesperson said: “Android has always been a uniquely open operating system, and we continue to evolve our platform and expand choices for developers and users, while maintaining our ability to invest in the ecosystem. With this next phase of Google Play’s billing pilot program, all non-gaming developers can offer an additional billing option alongside Play’s billing system for their users in Australia, Japan, India, Indonesia and the European Economic Area. We will share more in the coming months as we continue to build and iterate with our pilot partners.”
Starting today, any non-gaming developer worldwide can opt-in to participate in the pilot and offer that choice to their mobile and tablet users in those markets. Of course, users still have the choice to use Play’s billing system. Reasonable service fees will continue to be charged to support our investments in Android and Play, according to Google Play.
The announcement comes as Google faces an audit of its app store payment structure by the Competition Commission of India (CCI). Globally, too, Google and Apple are facing regulatory heat over their app store practices. Rather, Google claims that with the move, Google Play will become the first and only major app store to pilot user-choice billing. No other major app store, whether on mobile, desktop, or gaming consoles, has taken similar steps to provide more payment options and choices for developers, users, and the entire internet ecosystem.
In the last two years, Google Play has moved away from flat pricing, and today 99% of developers are entitled to a service fee of 15% or less.
Google has already cut commissions on the first $1 million in revenue developers earn each year from the Play billing system from 30% to 15% after Apple took a similar step. The company said that because of this change in pricing model, 99% of developers will qualify for a service fee of 15% or less in their app store.
