Google and RIM this week announced support for in-app payments, as both companies play catch-up with Apple in this sector of the apps market. Google has added in-app billing support to Android Market, which it says “gives developers more ways to monetise their applications through new billing models including try-and-buy, virtual goods, upgrades, and more.” The company is rolling out in-app billing in stages. It has already made available detailed documentation and a sample application, to enable developers to “get familiar with the service.” In the coming weeks it will rollout enhancements to the Android Market that will enable it to test against the in-app billing service. Before the end of the quarter, the service will be live for users. Meanwhile the latest version of RIM’s BlackBerry App World has gone live this week offering in-app payment support for the first time. The new version of the storefront (version 2.1) allows developers to use RIM’s Payment Services SDK to enable in-app payments in future and existing applications. Vendors will be able to register and manage virtual goods through the BlackBerry App World Vendor Portal and a reporting feature will be able to track purchases/payments for their goods. In-app payments will be subject to the same revenue share splits as offered by the BlackBerry App World storefront and use the payment type users specify in their BlackBerry ID (which can be either a credit card, carrier billing or an online payment service such as PayPal).

Letting users download an app for free and pay later through an in-app purchase of additional content has proved successful in other app stores. It is credited as being a significant revenue generator for developers using Apple’s App Store. Remco van den Elzen,  co-founder of analytics firm Distimo, said in November last year that he believed in-app purchases now represent about 30 percent of all iPhone App Store revenue, in an interview with GigaOm Pro. Earlier this week Apple hit the headlines when the firm was reported to have introduced new restrictions on App Store developers to prevent them from cutting it out of the value chain when using in-app purchasing, with Sony being the first high-profile casualty of the regime change.