Android Development

Well, in two words: you can’t!

Everyone knows that, but there is some sort of a workaround to fuzz. Get a Google Checkout Merchant account. Yes, Google Checkout only allows a couple of countries and if you don’t come from one of these you cannot get such an account.

Especially a lot of our developer buddies are not located in “the west” and come from “exotic” countries like the Singapore, Macao, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Russia, Belarus, Qatar, Brasil, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Argentina, and so on. You get the idea. I have read forum entries and blog articles of so many such great developers who have awesome apps but can’t get them sold on Android Market.

Here comes the trick: Fortunately, one of the supported countries is the United Kingdom. It is very easy to setup a Limited company in the U.K. as they have a very liberal law on this and every entity (individual or company) can incorporate a Limited company; no matter which nationality. There are lots of agents that provide an easy company setup (mostly even just online) which in the end they do online at the U.K. Companies House as well. A U.K. Limited company also allows to have the principal bank account in your local country. In that way you can withdraw the cash on your Google Checkout account to your local bank account (may be even through an intermediate bank).

All of this of course, costs quite some fees and needs time to be set up. However, it is better selling apps and get 80% out of it than not selling any and get 0%.

FYI: A U.K. Limited company setup might set you back US$1,000 in setup fees; a bank account setup may be US$250; yearly company maintenance costs might come up to US$500 per annum.

So find your agent now and get it going! It worked for me. In the meanwhile, learn more about How to earn money with your application through the Android Market.

P.S.: Let us know how you got it! Leave a comment.

Tags: account, android, checkout, google, kingdom, market, no, united, usa

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Distribution. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.