The ability to utilise different payment methods - such as PayPal - might appear to give Android Market an advantage over the App Store.

Interestingly, however, Bionic Panda Games has claimed that streamlining its payment options to solely focus on Google Checkout actually resulted in a revenue rise.

Passing on PayPal

The company claims per user monetisation has jumped 25 percent since it dropped support for PayPal to go Google Checkout only.

"Since we've switched from a combination of PayPal and Checkout to just Checkout, monetisation is up about 25 percent in the last six months," said CEO and co-founder Charles Hudson at Inside Social Apps in San Francisco.

"We went 100 percent Google Checkout to make the user flow better.

"We also added new monetisation features. Simplifying the checkout to one button improved the conversion rate, new features improved the revenue generated, so it's a mix."

Any clue will do

It's by no means an exact science, but Android developers have long complained monetisation rates fall below those enjoyed on iOS - which, coincidentally or not, sports one of the most streamlined payment systems available.

As such, any clue as to how developers working on Google's platform can level the playing field will be well received by Android studios currently struggling to monetise their titles, and - according to Hudson - Google Checkout's set up is only likely to improve in the future.

"The good news on payments for developers is that we have a standardised thing to shoot for with Google Checkout instead of hacking together our own solution," he concluded.

"It's still in its early days and they're still working out some of the kinks. Google is new and not 10 years old like iTunes."

[source: Inside Mobile Apps]