$AMZN Scales Out App Stores to Over 200 Countries

“Amazon today took a big step forward in its strategy to take its app distribution business — and its Kindle Fire hardware business — global: it announced that its Android-based Appstore will expand to cover “nearly 200″ countries, including adding Australia, Latin American countries like Brazil and Mexico, Canada, South Africa and South Korea. Up to now, the only countries where the Appstore was available were the U.S., UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan.

Developers interested in distributing their apps to these new international users can start submitting their apps today, Amazon said. The storefronts themselves will be coming “in the coming months” when Amazon officially launches its Amazon Appstore for Android internationally.

Last quarter, Amazon missed on almost all analyst estimates but its stock soared anyway, partly because, as the WSJ points out, it was showing improvements in its operating income — a sign that its business of selling online on a grand scale continues to progress.

Amazon is due to announce its next quarterly results on April 25. Putting the news out today that it’s growing the scale of its digital content business even further helps them continue to sell that message in the lead-up to that.

It’s also an important message to lure more developers to its platform.

“Amazon’s platform is a complete end-to-end solution for developers wanting to build, market and monetize their apps and games on Kindle Fire and Android devices,” said Mike George, VP of Apps and Games at Amazon, in a statement. “Allowing developers to target distribution of their apps and games in even more international countries is yet another important milestone as we strive to serve consumers and developers globally. Many of our existing developers have localized their apps and games for international consumers, and we look forward to working with new developers that have been waiting to bring their apps to more Amazon customers across the globe.”

Amazon, as we have all come to expect by now, doesn’t give out specific numbers on how well apps (or its devices) are selling. (However, Flurry a year ago estimated that the Appstore generated nearly as much as Apple’s App Store, at 89% of Apple’s app revenues, with Google Play significantly behind them, making only 23% as much as Apple…..”

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