More than 9 million subscribers of Telia, Tele2, Telenor and Tre can now make payments for digital content including app stores, streaming services and games by charging purchases to their mobile account.

“In highly saturated and competitive markets like Sweden, digital merchants need every edge they can get over their competition. From a payments perspective, carrier billing provides this advantage as it simplifies user onboarding and boosts conversion compared to traditional payment methods. We are excited to be working with our merchant partners and the Swedish telcos in growing their revenue and delivering high-value services to consumers,” said Martin Koppel, CEO & co-founder of Fortumo.

In the past, merchants had to use the local master aggregator WyWallet for carrier billing. Due to the closure of WyWallet in the end of May, Fortumo integrated and launched directly with the Swedish telcos in less than a month to avoid downtime for merchants.

Fortumo now provides its payments platform to companies of any size: beside major digital merchants, carrier billing is also available to smaller companies and individuals thanks to the scalable self-service setup solution. In addition to Sweden, carrier billing through Fortumo is available in over 100 countries.

While most Swedish consumers have a credit card, carrier billing is often preferred for digital content payments thanks to its simplicity and security. Users do not need to create or log into any accounts, nor do they need to share personal information online. Payments are completed in a few clicks and only the user’s phone number is processed.

This has given carrier billing a market share of 13.6% in Western Europe (with bank cards at 27.5% and digital wallets at 26.9%) for digital content payments, according to SuperData Research. In recent news from Sweden, Fortumo announced the launch of carrier billing for Europe’s leading mobile parking company EasyPark, as well as the leading Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet (part of Schibsted Media Group).