Microsoft said it is opening registrations for Windows Phone developers in 13 new markets, at the same time making “another 100 or so fixes and improvements” to its Dev Center infrastructure.

Developers in the new markets can now register accounts and submit free products to the store – Microsoft did not state if it intends adding support for paid apps for these in the future.

The 13 new territories supported are: Afghanistan, Albania, Andorra, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Mongolia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Timor-Leste.

In total, the Windows Phone Dev Center is supported in 191 regions.

In a blog post, Microsoft’s Todd Brix said that other updates to the store are mainly “designed to further streamline the app certification process, address app update workflow issues, and improve site performance overall”.

Microsoft introduced Dev Center earlier this year, as a replacement for its App Hub developer portal. For some time, it had been promising the rollout of a more robust and scalable backend.