Vietnamese market leader Viettel has partnered with mobile payments firm Fortumo to provide direct carrier billing to the operator’s subscribers.
The deal will enable over 55 million customers to purchase digital content online by charging payments to their mobile phone bill. As a result of the partnership, Fortumo will provide the billing platform to Viettel to enable the launch of carrier billing on major app stores.
“Mobile operators get the best value out of their billing platform if they enable payments for app stores, but also for video and music streaming providers, game developers and other digital merchants," said Gerri Kodres, Chief Business Officer at Fortumo.
According to the World Bank, credit card penetration in Vietnam is below 2% and debit card penetration stands at 27%. This means that only a quarter of the 36 million smartphone owners in the country currently have access to online payments without mobile payments. The direct carrier billing partnership between Viettel and Fortumo aims to bridge this gap in payment access as online payments become available to anyone who owns a mobile phone.
Fortumo’s direct carrier billing platform is currently available to over 2.5 billion consumers in several Asian countries, including Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand & Vietnam.
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.
