During the last few years, India has become a superpower in the mobile ecosystem. The country now has more smartphones than the United States, being only exceeded by China. Just this summer, India also became the biggest country by number of Facebook users.

Despite a booming (mobile) economy, growth in the market can be challenging for digital merchants. Low income and past habit to consume digital content for free (including piracy) means a relatively small part of the population is able and willing to pay for online content and services.

Even in case there is willingness to pay for a digital service, many people do not have the channels available to do so. The banking industry has not caught up with the rest of the economy and this means access to traditional, bank-based payment methods is low, illustrated by single-digit credit card ownership in the country.

As a result, adopting alternative payments is one of the key challenges for merchants looking to expand their user base and revenue in the country. This market report aims to help merchants in solving that challenge by providing information on carrier billing in the country.

Want to get a better understanding of India's mobile ecosystem? Fill in the form below and download your copy of the market report!

The mobile operator Telstra announced last week that it would shut down recurring Premium SMS (PSMS) services due to a large amount of customer complaints. Similar incidents from the United States and other countries indicate the problem is real. But should the technology be blamed or is there something else going on?

PSMS technology is outdated due to direct carrier billing (DCB) continuing to replace it in most countries globally. Telstra itself has also been offering DCB to merchants for some time now. But the customer complaints are not a result of legacy technology usage.

For mobile operators digital innovation is the key to future growth. Sources of revenue in the mobile ecosystem are shifting away from traditional telecommunication services and handset sales towards digital service creation, aggregation and distribution.

Mobile operators have tried to do this on their own but this has usually not worked out. One notable example has been the widespread trend of carrier-owned app stores 4-5 years ago, most of which are now defunct.

The alternative (and less costly from an investment and headcount perspective) approach is to work with third parties who create such services. The mobile operator can then focus on its core area of expertise: distributing, monetizing and marketing the services to their subscribers.

What services should telcos partner with? We already see partnerships on virtual (gaming, social networking) and digital (app stores, streaming) segments, but is there anything beyond that?

Next week the inaugural MWC Americas is taking place in San Francisco. We are excited to let you know that Fortumo will be attending as well.

While the event is taking place in the United States, our main focus for the event will be on Latin America. You can check out more data on the region where Fortumo supports carrier billing in 12 countries to 490 million people from our recent market report.

Latin America has low access to bank-based payment methods and high ownership of smartphones. This has lead carrier billing to become the second most popular payment method in the region, with a 20.7% market share.

Yet while carrier billing is hugely popular in segments like gaming and social networking, many modern digital merchants have not yet expanded to Latin America. We want to change that.

Whether you are a digital merchant looking to expand your user base and revenue in Latin America or a carrier seeking to bring new high-value digital services to your subscribers, we want to help you accomplish that.

Set up a meeting with us by getting in touch at bd@fortumo.com.

The goal of bundle partnerships is to make money for digital merchants and mobile operators. For merchants, this comes from new users who can be monetized via premium accounts or ad revenue. Mobile operators on the other hand generate revenue by upselling users to more expensive service packs, increasing their mobile data consumption and stickiness.

The predominant model for these partnerships used to be something called a minimum guarantee (MG) approach. Under the MG approach, the mobile operator used to pay a flat fee to the merchant and acquired a certain number of discounted licenses to the service.

It’s important to note the words “used to be” as the minimum guarantee approach is becoming increasingly unpopular. This is because with the fixed payment logic, merchants and carriers are not aligned in their interests on what the bundle partnership should achieve.