As an App Store user in India, if you suddenly see apps like WhatsApp Messenger, Angry Birds Space or Keynote listed with an INR pricing, rest assured that it's not a bug. Apple has begun rolling out INR pricing for apps in the Indian App Store prefixed with "Rs." thereby replacing the earlier $ sign.
If you now browse throughout the Indian App Store, you'll find most of the apps with the INR pricing. Though initially some apps were being displayed incorrectly without the actual conversion ($0.99 displayed as Rs. 0.99), the issue seems to be addressed with seemingly all apps now listed at the current price. The company is using the current exchange rate for conversion.
It's interesting to also note that Apple is using "Rs." instead of the official Rupee symbol. But we're not complaining. It's a much awaited feature that many were hoping to see. Now when you send an Indian App Store
link to anyone, the browser also displays the price in "Rs.".
Apart from INR, Apple has included support for 7 other currencies, which it circulated in an email sent to developers;
The App Store now supports new currencies in the following eight territories, so your customers can easily purchase your apps in their local currency:
Russia: Ruble (RUB)
Turkey: Lira (TRY)
India: Rupee (INR)
Indonesian: Rupiah (IDR)
Israel: New Shekel (ILS)
Saudi Arabia: Riyal (SAR)
South Africa: Rand (ZAR)
United Arab Emirates: Dirham (AED)
Just a week ago, Google adopted a similar policy and broke the news via blogpost to confirm that
Indian users can soon start paying for apps and in-app purchases in rupees on the Google Play Store. Russia was also added to the list.
The company asked developers to set INR and RUB prices of their apps by October 25th, which indicates that Google might introduce INR pricing in Play Store from Friday. Google also said that in case the developers could not set the price before the deadline, Google will automatically assign the INR and RUB prices based on the exchange rates.