Google has confirmed that the Android Market application store for the T-Mobile G1 cellphone will begin offering paid applications in the US and the UK early on in the first quarter of 2009, according to a report posted earlier this week. Soon thereafter, the Android Market in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain will also sell applications for devices running on the Google Android operating system. The move should help bring the Android Market more in line with the more established App Store from Apple, as the paid apps are expected to be more advanced and of higher quality.

At the same time, Google said the Android Market will launch in new markets over the next few weeks, including Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands getting the service ahead of other European and Asian countries. Like with the launch of the G1 handset in the US, the launch of the Android Market is expected to come at the same time as the release of the handset itself in these countries, as one is useless without the other. Developers will be capable of making market-specific versions of their applications.