The two most notable mobile payment companies in the social gaming industry, Boku and Zong, announced their support for the Android OS yesterday morning. The payment platforms will allow Android users to purchase items in-apps without leaving the app’s environment. This should be beneficial to both developers and consumers in America as well as the international arena because it streamlines the accessibility to payments without compromising user experience. Read more after the jump.
The new launched Android billing platforms make sense because of Androids increasing popularity relative to iPhone in North America, as we covered recently. Android is gearing up for its latest version, FroYo, and garnering strong attention from players in the gaming space. The one-touch payments are a viable next step in the evolution of Android’s ecosystem, especially as Android announced support for Paypal a few weeks ago.
“Mobile developers have customarily focused on the iPhone because it has been difficult to monetize applications on Android. But now with over 100,000 new Android handsets activated daily, the market opportunity is growing rapidly and with an easy payment tool, developers will now be able to easily generate revenue from that market,” said Zong CEO David Marcus in a press statement.
Zong’s solution will be available in over 30 countries while Boku’s will be available in over 60. Zong is seeing strong growth and has struck deals with thousands of publishers and merchants consisting of virtual worlds, online games, social networks and other digital content properties. Boku is also in the same boat, and has provided many games such as Aeria Games, the ability to provide its users the ability to pay for virtual goods with their mobile phones.
Security is very important in this space. The transactions in the Android system will be authenticated, requiring the purchaser to physically possess the mobile device. The bills will go directly to the carrier bill. By identifying the phone being used and the purchaser, mobile payments will have an acute advantage over credit card payments and even PayPal. We will watch carefully as both competitors fight for adoption for its service which is currently invite-only. Check out the video below for a demo:
