With Google checkout not supporting Egypt, there weren’t any paid apps listed in the Egyptian version of Google store. For local developers the only way for them to get paid for their android app was to set up a bank account in one of the “Google Approved” countries and even then they wont be able to sell their apps in Egypt. This was the main reason why android development never picked up in Egypt unlike iPhone apps (since Apple App store has been handling local payments for quite sometime now). Today I noticed that paid apps started popping up in Google Play, which may indicate that Google now allows Egyptian users to purchase apps, of course this completely relies on Google wallet which is the only way to pay for apps on Google Play.
Paid Apps Visible on Egyptian Google Play
So far Egyptian users were forced to rely on creative methods such as using “market enabler” which requires rooting the device, however now even on none rooted devices I can see paid apps (exactly 5 of them). I tried to purchase one of the apps and was immediately asked for my Google wallet login only to later find out that my Egyptian credit card is still NOT approved by google, which basically means that even though we can view paid apps we still can’t purchase them.
Egypt is not listed as one of the “approved” countries
This has one of two explenations, either a technical glitch resulted in us seeing these apps – or – we can purchase apps through redeeming google play gift cards which are purchased using credit cards issued from one of the approved countries. The caveat of it all is that Egyptian android users still need to root and then use market enabler on their phones to be able to download any decent apps.
