Amazon has announced that it has now extended Amazon Coins to customers for purchase of apps, games and in-app items in the Amazon Appstore and on the Kindle Fire tablet.
As
expected, Amazon Coins are being first introduced in the US, and as part of the launch promotion, Amazon is offering 500 free coins of value $5 to existing and new Kindle Fire customers.
"Today we are giving Kindle Fire owners $5 worth of Coins to spend on new apps and games, or to purchase in-app items, such as recipes in iCookbook, song collections in SongPop or mighty falcon bundles in Angry Birds Star Wars. And with discounts of up to 10% when you buy Coins, this is a great way for customers to save money when they buy apps, games and in-app items," said Mike George, Vice President of Apps and Games at Amazon.
"We will continue to add more ways to earn and spend Coins on a wider range of content and activities-today is Day One for Coins," he added.
Amazon had first announced Amazon Coins in February and it's essentially virtual currency that allows users to pay for virtual goods or features sold inside apps, in addition to apps, games and other content.
With the virtual currency, Amazon intends to garner more new customers, downloads and in-app purchases and promote its content ecosystem. The company incentivises its customers by giving them a discount of up to 10 percent when they buy Amazon Coins.
The Amazon Appstore developers will continue to earn 70 percent revenue share on each purchase done with Amazon coins.
Amazon had earlier
announced the global expansion of its Appstore for Android devices, making it available in nearly 200 countries including India, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, Papua New Guinea and Vatican City. So we expect Amazon to extend Amazon Coins to these markets as well.