Until recently, paid applications were supported in only 14 of the 48 available Google Android Market countries. It seems that Google just started to expand the set of countries where paid applications are available.

Over the last weekend, we have seen 13 new countries where paid content has been added to the Android Market:

• Argentina
• Belgium
• Brazil
• Finland
• Hong Kong
• Israel
• Mexico
• Poland
• Romania
• Russia
• Slovakia
• Singapore
• South Africa

Consumers in these countries now have access to paid apps while browsing the Android Market. However, it is not completely clear if Google has enabled consumers to actually purchase apps from the Markt already. Additionally, as Google seems to be rolling out support for paid applications right now, the list above may not be the definite list of countries for which Google will support paid applications in the near future.

Google Android Market in these countries does not show many country specific apps yet. This is caused by the fact that developers were not aware when these countries would be supported, and Google does not enable developers to target these specific countries yet. When publishing a paid application, Android Market still lists the 14 countries where paid content was already available. This is likely to change very soon.

Google is also extending the overall availability of Android Market around the world. India and Hungary for example, have shown up in the list of countries to which developers can publish applications.

Android Market supported locations

This is good news for developers. With mobile heavy countries like Brazil and India joining the Android Market, the reach for developers to distribute their Android apps is increasing fast. We’ll keep you posted as more news is available on the specific new countries for both free and paid apps. Of course, we can now provide custom reports on those Android Market countries.