Starting from this week, 55 million subscribers of Viettel can purchase apps, music and books from Google Play by charging the purchases to their phone bill. Viettel is the first mobile operator in Vietnam to launch mobile payments on Google Play.

“The key reason for Viettel selecting Fortumo was our industry-leading technical platform that is capable of simultaneously handling large app stores as well as leading OTTs. Additionally, Fortumo has been preferred choice for carriers in Asia because of our strong focus on the region and local presence. Vietnam is one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in Asia and we are proud to be chosen by Viettel as partner to launch Google Play,” said Gerri Kodres, Chief Business Officer at Fortumo.
In addition to providing carrier billing for global merchants and app stores such as Google Play and Windows Phone Store, Fortumo’s advanced platform is also used by Asia’s leading music and video streaming providers and app developers such as Sony, HOOQ, UCWeb (Alibaba), Tencent and Huawei.

Smartphone penetration in Vietnam has reached 36.2% of mobile phone users. Meanwhile only 1.9% of the people have a credit card and 26.5% have a debit card, according to the World Bank. This creates a significant gap in users who are able to access online content in Vietnam and those who are able to pay for it using traditional payment methods. Carrier billing resolves this issue, enabling both post-paid and pre-paid customers to make payments using just their smartphone or even feature phone.

In Asia carrier billing has become one of the most popular methods of payment. In recent news from the region, Fortumo announced partnerships with the SingTel-backed video streaming service HOOQ and the world’s largest digital newsstand Magzter.

Fortumo’s direct carrier billing platform allows users to make payments over a data connection by confirming purchases with one click on their phone. Payments are processed without any additional information required from the mobile user which provides a significant conversion improvement compared to any other online payment method.