Amazon has just announced that come May, Kindle Fire users will have access to a new virtual currency – Amazon Coins. The currency allows customers to pay for purchases such as apps, games, and in-app items. To drive users’ interest for the new currency, Amazon will be giving out Amazon Coins worth tens of millions of dollars to spend on developers’ apps on Kindle Fire in theAmazon Appstore.
Amazon Appstore developers will earn their standard 70 percent revenue share when customers make purchases using Amazon Coins. Developers with apps and games currently in the Amazon Appstore for the U.S. don’t need to do anything with their apps to benefit from this new currency.
“Developers continue to report higher conversion rates on Amazon compared to other platforms,” said Paul Ryder, Vice President of Apps and Games for Amazon. “Now we have another new way to help developers reach even more of our millions of customers.”
Developers seemed to be thrilled with this idea too, as Keith Shepherd, CEO of Imangi Studio’s praised Amazon’s app store and the new currency. “We’ve already found that the average revenue per user on Amazon is higher than other Android platforms,” he said. “We’re very excited about the monetization opportunity withAmazon’s new virtual currency.”
Misha Lyalin, ZeptoLab’s CEO said that, “Amazon’s new virtual currency is designed to open new opportunities for developers and make things easier for customers. This is a great example of appstore innovation and we want to support it.”
While this service will only be available to US customers for now, there is no reason why it could not become available to international customers in the future.
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