Are you a Windows phone game developer? Fortumo wants to help you out

It’s no surprise that the mobile games market is thriving in Asia. But it’s also a point of concern for most game developers since large parts of the region that aren’t Japan, South Korea, or Singapore have low credit card penetration. This is something international mobile payment provider Fortumo is aware of. The company lets gamers make in-app purchases through their mobile operator bill.

In order to help developers obtaining paying users, the company announced a new developer program for Windows phone and Windows 8 developers. Any developer who adds the Fortumo in-app purchasing SDK to their Windows phone or Windows 8 app (and already generates minimum revenue of $2,000 per month on the platform) will receive $5,000 in free advertising credits from Fortumo to drive downloads for their apps.

(See: Mobile game revenue in Asia is almost two and a half times of that of America (INFOGRAPHIC))

This follows the company’s previous program, launched in March, wherein $1 million was set aside for Windows developers. The company claims that it has seen strong traction on the platform and that the major issue faced by developers is user acquisition. The advertising credits for developers should help them get users who would pay for apps.

“The biggest revenue opportunity for Windows phone developers comes from countries like India, Turkey, Brazil and Poland where Windows phone has a strong, growing market share. These are also the markets where mobile payments beat credit cards when it comes to in-app transactions. Combining carrier billing with improved app discovery can significantly increase developer income from Windows phone,” said Martin Koppel, COO of Fortumo.

Given that Windows phone is doing exceedingly well in markets like India, this might be a step in the right direction. The company claims that Windows phone owners spend more on apps than Android owners, with the average spend being $1.50 versus just $1.22 on Google’s platform. But in the face of Google’s aggressive Android One strategy for India, whether free advertising credits (on already monetizing apps) is good enough remains to be seen.

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