Through a partnership with Viettel, the largest mobile operator in Vietnam, Fortumo is bringing direct carrier billing for Viettel subscribers providing the ability for over 36 million smartphone owners to make mobile payments and purchase digital content online by charging payments to their mobile phone bill.
Direct carrier billing lets users make payments over a data connection by confirming payments with one click on their phone. Since the mobile operator has all the information necessary to process the payment, this removes the need to send any text messages during the payment process. In markets where Fortumo provides direct carrier billing, payment conversion for first-time payments is close to 40% and higher for repeat purchases.
Fortumo also recently announced the launch of direct carrier billing for Windows Phone Store in the Philippines. Fortumo’s direct carrier billing platform is currently available to over 2.5 billion consumers in 16 Asian countries (Australia, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand & Vietnam). Globally Fortumo covers 94 countries and reaches 4.3 billion consumers with its carrier billing solution.
Besides app stores such as Google Play and Windows Phone Store, Fortumo’s platform is used directly by leading platforms and digital content providers in Asia, including Gaana, UCWeb/Alibaba, Box TV, Ditto TV, Times Internet, Mobogenie, Octro and Games2Win.
To enable global carrier billing for these merchants, Fortumo has partnerships with more than 350 mobile operators across the world, including mobile operator groups such as Telefónica, Telenor, Singtel, Turkcell and Kyivstar, as well as leading mobile operators in India and China. Fortumo announced the launch of direct carrier billing for Windows Phone Store in the Philippines.
App publishers who want to utilize the Fortumo platform can do so with no cost as the company charges no sign-up fees, no fixed fees, no minimum monthly volume requirements or recurring costs. Fortumo's commission is made up by a small percentage added on top of the mobile operator's revenue share. Fortumo handles all taxes on behalf of developers and payouts are 100%.