Global tech giant Google IT giant Google has announced that developers that sell in-app digital goods and services on Play will now have to shell out less in terms of fee. From July 1, 2021, Google will reduce the service fee Google Play receives to 15 per cent for the first USD 1 million (around Rs 73 lakh) of revenue every developer earns each year.
The company believes that with this change around 99 per cent of developers globally that sell digital goods and services with Play will see a 50 per cent reduction in fees. “These are funds that can help developers scale up at a critical phase of their growth by hiring more engineers, adding to their marketing staff, increasing server capacity, and more,” added Google in its statement.
For the thousands of developers in India that are already using Play to sell digital goods, they can start receiving the benefit of this change as soon as it goes into effect in July.
The developers will have to confirm some basic information to the IT company like if there are any associated accounts they have among others. Post which, Google will ensure that the 15 per cent fee is smoothly applied -- this discount will automatically renew each year. “We look forward to sharing full details in the coming months,” the company added.
Last year, Google had made it mandatory for app developers distributing Android software on the Google Play Store to use its in-app payment system. This meant that these developers had to pay 30 per cent fee from payments.
The company stated more than 97 per cent of apps globally do not sell digital goods, and therefore do not pay any service fee. For the developers in India that do sell digital goods, but have not yet integrated with Play’s billing system, they continue to have until March 31, 2022 as announced previously.
