Mobile payments company Fortumo is expanding its carrier billing services to three new African markets.
All three markets where Fortumo has launched have extremely low credit card penetration: Algeria at 6%, Ghana at 0.9% and Tanzania at 0.7%. This means while people can access online content, most of them are unable to make payments for paid features of these services.
Carrier billing solves this problem by allowing any mobile owner to make payments conveniently through their carrier and either deduct payments from their airtime balance or charge them to their monthly phone bill. More than 79 million mobile phone owners in Algeria, Ghana and Tanzania can now make payments for digital services.
“Africa’s digital ecosystem is quickly growing and we are seeing strong interest from international merchants who want to expand their activities there. While each day a large amount of new smartphone owners are coming online, collecting payments from these users has so far been a challenge. Our expansion in Africa gives locals better access to digital mobile services such as games, music, and video while helping merchants generate additional revenue from the region,” said Gerri Kodres, Chief Business Officer at Fortumo.
In the Middle East and African region, carrier billing through Fortumo is now available to more than 600 million people in 24 countries.
