Here’s a bit of good news for all those smartphone users in India who won’t mind buying a paid app if it is good, but hesitate in using a credit card for the purchase. Well, if you own a Samsung smartphone, a credit card is no longer required to buy a paid app. Because Samsung smartphone users can pay for the apps through the mobile bills!
Samsung has recently launched the operator billing integration, available for both prepaid and postpaid customers. To begin with, Samsung has partnered with Vodafone and Aircel. But very likely, partnership for the same with other major telecom operators would be coming soon too.
Speaking about the tie-up, Mr. Tarun Malik, Director of Media Solutions Center-South West Asia, Samsung Electronics, said, “Given the poor credit card penetration in the country, we are positive that this move will be welcomed by customers. It is another step forward to expand our engagement with the publisher and developer community by enhancing adoption as well as monetization from the store.”
Not just apps and games, the users can also purchase books via recently announced Kindle book service for Samsung smartphones. Through this service, Samsung and Amazon will launch Samsung Book Deals which will be available to all users of Kindle for Samsung.
In short, owners of Samsung smartphones in India can now purchase content from Samsung App store without any need of a credit card. As of now, only Vodafone and Aircel customers can benefit from this facility. But let’s hope that very soon, customers of other telecom operators would be able to use this payment option too.
When this mode of payment becomes available to more users, it will definitely lead to more people purchasing the apps and games, instead of limiting themselves to free versions or risking their security by downloading pirated version.