EXCLUSIVE: Vodafone claims that many developers prefer its own Android app shop to Google’s flagship Android Market, a belief that may strengthen industry concern that the growing emergence of new app stores supporting Android is damaging the ‘premium’ Android Market product.

In an exclusive interview with Mobile Apps Briefing for a two-part Focus feature, Hemant Madan, Head of Developer Marketing for Vodafone Internet Services, claimed that, against a backdrop of criticism from developers about the user experience delivered by Android Market, Vodafone’s own 360 Shop for Android provides an alternative that is finding support from the developer community. “The developer doesn’t really have to do anything different than they’ve already done, they’ve already built an Android app. They may be putting it up on Google’s marketplace, which is fine – we’re not asking for exclusivity here. But what we find is that a lot of the developers that we are working with, especially games developers, are actually preferring the carrier store to the Google marketplace.”

Madan’s comments (which can be read in full here) come as many other players are launching Android-based app stores. In September Verizon’s V Cast Apps store announced it was supporting Android. Since then Amazon is reported to be preparing the launch of its own apps store running over the Android platform, with US electronics retail giant Best Buy also considering a launch. Given Amazon’s reported efforts, an app store from rival Barnes & Noble (which offers the Android-powered Nook ereader) is not unlikely. There are also ‘independent’ stores such as GetJar and PocketGear that offer Android apps (as well as apps from other rival platforms).

These moves led Google CEO Eric Schmidt to last month deny that the availability of multiple Android app stores is creating confusion for users and software developers. On a conference call Schmidt claimed that the goal of Android Market is to “make money for the people who are writing the software and the applications, and it’s not a revenue goal for Google.” He said that the launch of other stores is a “net win” for everybody and not a primary focus for Android.

Meanwhile it’s not an issue that has escaped the attention of Apple, either. Last month CEO Steve Jobs claimed that the recent emergence of online stores for Android applications would force developers to work much harder to distribute their apps than they do with Apple’s single, supervised store for iPhone and iPad programs.