Microsoft has confirmed that the company is launching the Windows Phone Marketplace in 23 countries this month. The listed countries are China, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Croatia, Estonia, Iceland, Iraq, Isreal, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Vietnam. Microsoft has already started accepting applications specific for these regions from the developers, but with Microsoft has warned the developers that some countries would require additional security certifications.
The growth of the Windows Phone Marketplace has increased exponentially, with over 300 apps getting uploaded to the Marketplace each day from the developers. And in-fact, we would be adding one soon to the Marketplace. If you could recall, the company is set to launch the next version of Windows Phone in China this month, where some more handsets are expected at the event. The count of the Windows Phone Marketplace has gone upto 63, when these 23 countries are included for the count. Looks like Microsoft is having a great year ahead and is aiming at bringing Windows Phone 7.5 to many more devices with the new Tango update, which has very minimal system requirements.
Source: The Windows Team Blog