Thanks to the partnership, more than 10 million Vietnamobile subscribers can now conveniently purchase apps and in-app content from the app store by charging payments to their phone bill.

In Vietnam, credit card penetration is below 2% while more than 40% of people own a smartphone with the number expected to continue growing during the coming years. Carrier billing is among the most popular payment methods in Vietnam which means this is the first time many Google Play users can make payments on the app store. Additional information on the Vietnamese carrier billing market can be found from Fortumo’s market report on Asia.

“Vietnam is one of the fastest growing economies in Asia and mobile services are a large part of this. Fortumo is proud to be chosen as a partner by Vietnamobile for launching carrier billing on Google Play. Integration with Fortumo’s platform provides Vietnamobile with a robust and scalable solution for connecting them to the world’s largest digital merchants through one integration, along with superior analytics. The partnership further ensures Fortumo’s status as the leading provider of carrier billing in Asia,” said Gerri Kodres, Chief Business Officer at Fortumo.

In addition to connecting leading app stores, Fortumo provides access to large digital merchants in other segments such as music and video streaming (Fortumo recently announced a partnership with Spotify in Asia), social networking and gaming, which can be activated by carriers with the same integration. Thanks to partnering with Fortumo, carriers also get access to Fortumo Insight, a sophisticated data analytics platform which helps carriers track and analyze revenue from app stores and assess the effectiveness of subscriber marketing campaigns.

In addition to Google Play, Fortumo’s direct carrier billing platform is also used by digital media providers (Spotify, Sony, HOOQ, Gaana) and gaming companies (EA Mobile, Gameloft, Kinguin, Rovio). To enable carrier billing for these merchants, Fortumo has partnered with more than 350 mobile operators across the world.