Everyone in the carrier billing business agrees that the opportunity is massive, it’s simply a matter of how massive. With a clear enthusiasm about the growing momentum in the industry, senior representatives from global mobile operators and app stores came together this week at Informa’s Global Carrier Billing event in London. Bango were a proud sponsor of the event which contained much discussion on how big the opportunity really is.
Global carrier billing revenues are just under $17bn today, growing to over $25bn by 2020, according to Gillermo Escofet from Ovum. Conversation focused on how to best capture this opportunity and rapidly grow it. Naturally, the age old topic of revenue shares came up and how operators need to get pay-out percentages above 95% to match that of credit cards. Looking to the future, there was an examination of the market beyond digital content, with physical goods being a hot topic.
Ray Anderson, Bango CEO, considered a different approach. He looked at how operators and app stores have moved from costly, time consuming operator owned hubs and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) integrations, to adopt independent, industry platforms to integrate through, like the Bango Payment Platform. Pushing payments into the cloud instantly gives the operators proven technical connectivity with all app stores, allowing them to start earning fast, minimizing costs to ensure higher profits and guarantee the quality of their customers’ payment experience.
Ray reinforced a recurring theme discussed during the day, that carrier billing focus must extend beyond app store integration. Operators must continue to measure success post launch, engaging with consumers to educate and promote carrier billing benefits. It is their opportunity to maximize. This includes looking at how error messages are communicated – encouraging customers to top-up rather than telling them they have no remaining balance to spend, or delivering smart spending limits rather than one size fits all. Importantly operators using a common app store billing platform are able to gain benchmark insights that ensure they keep up with their peers, something an isolated DIY solution simply cannot achieve.
The high quality, focused event attracted many senior international industry leaders. It contained enlightening talks from global mobile operators, including Orange, Deutsche Telecom, Rogers and Telenor. Along with senior representatives from major app stores such as Microsoft who spoke about cross device carrier billing plans with Windows 10. The Global Carrier Billing event made a valuable change from the usual token sessions held as part of larger industry events. I look forward to the next one and encourage attendance from more app stores and mobile operators.
View Ray’s event presentation – “How are operators maximizing carrier billing revenue from app stores?”