Android Market In-App Payments In Q1; Google "Not Happy" With Paid App Growth

Google is looking to improve the performance of paid apps in the Android Market with tools like in-app purchases and carrier billing, after Android platform manager Eric Chu told developers this week that the search giant was "not happy" with paid-app growth. According to Forbes, Chu outlined Google's rough strategy for the Android Market in 2011, which will see carrier billing for software extended from just AT&T in the US.

The AT&T arrangement began in December 2010, and Chu says that Google is working with more carriers worldwide to set up similar systems. As for in-app payments, that's expected to debut sometime this quarter, and as on iOS will allow free or paid apps to offer further downloads for add-ons and extras.

Meanwhile, Google's is looking to make discovering apps more successful, with tweaks to the search algorithm and more emphasis on removing titles that contravene the terms of service. There'll also be a push for HTML5 apps and leveraging "the best social graph": the user's own address book since it aggregates contacts from multiple platforms.

[via Android Community]