A new report from Juniper Research says ‘direct carrier billing’ - enabling consumers to charge purchases to their mobile phone account - could transform the mobile content market. It’s found that third-party content providers with direct carrier billing have seen a five to six-fold increase in conversion rates compared with credit card billing. In addition, average transaction values are also higher.
As a result, Juniper Research expects mobile content revenue that’s been paid for through direct carrier billing to rise from $2 billion last year to more than $13 billion (approaching £9 billion) by 2017.
Currently two-thirds of content downloads worldwide are made via Google Play and the Apple App Store, with network operator shops and online portals accounting for just 6% of content downloads.
Dr Windsor Holden, research director at Juniper Research and author of the report, said “While many operators have now abandoned the own-brand storefront approach, by leveraging their billing relationship with the end user they can retain a foothold in the content play. Simply by offering consumers a billing choice, monetisation rates will rise dramatically.”
[Whitepaper; report]
We spoke to Windsor Holden last month about the innovation expected at Mobile World Congress. You can listen to the interview via the built-in audio player on our website or by downloading the MP3 file. Alternatively, receive our podcasts every week via RSS feed or iTunes.
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