Google Play is underperforming for developers in terms of the revenue it is generating for premium apps, according to billing company Flexion Mobile.

Research by the company has found that operator billing is up to 10 times more effective than the billing system used by the Google store.

Google Play’s in-app billing provided a conversion rate of 1 per cent “at best” from free trial to purchase. In other Android app stores using operator billing, the conversion rate can be up to 10 per cent.

In addition, apps that have done well as premium titles in Apple’s App Store have turned to ad funding in Google Play, showing that premium monetisation is not working as well as it should in Google’s app store.

The research suggests developers could make more revenue of Google Play offered better coverage of direct operator billing.

“We believe it is Google’s obligation to offer good monetisation tools and it is pretty clear that by mandating the use of a billing SDK that does not convert well, it puts the whole ecosystem in danger,” said Jens Lauritzson, CEO of Flexion Mobile.

Lauritzon added that Google’s current approach of waiting for operators to integrate with it, rather than pro-actively building out capabilities itself, means it could take some time for operator billing to become widespread, allowing advertising to become the dominant monetisation model.

And Google’s attitude could provide another opportunity for another ecosystem to flourish, according to Lauritzon.