Amazon (AMZN 0.25%) plans to expand its Appstore to about 200 countries in the coming months, building on launches in a handful of European countries and Japan.
Amazon's announcement of the expansion yesterday is aimed at enticing more developers onto its platform before the company launches officially in places including Brazil, Australia, Canada, Papua New Guinea, and Vatican City.
Developers can submit their apps for international distribution now. Registered developers will see their apps automatically available for download (unless they specify otherwise) once the Amazon Appstore opens internationally "in the coming months."
In touting its international expansion, Amazon highlights features including 1-Click purchasing, In-App Purchasing (IAP), and GameCircle. IAP allows customers to purchase app-specific widgets with their Amazon information and allows a "seamless user experience" across multiple devices. Developers can use GameCircle to make game apps more social through, for example, leaderboards.
Amazon says its current developers have seen strong monetization and user engagement with these features. In the Amazon press release, P2 Games -- a U.K.-based interactive games publisher -- says it has seen sales on Kindle Fire overtake Google Play by a factor of four or five.
Flurry Analytics echoed similar findings in a report covered last year by TechCrunch. In its study a year ago, the analytics company found that Amazon Appstore generates far more revenue than Google Play. Setting Apple's App Store as a benchmark (meaning it generates 100%), Amazon Appstore was found to have generated 89% of App Store revenues. Google generated only 23% of App Store revenues.
