Green Packet Bhd’s joint Venture company, Funsea Interactive Entertainment (M) Sdn Bhd entered into a partnership with Apigate to enable Direct Carrier Billing (DCB) for Celcom’s customers.
DCB is traditionally used by mobile content creators and developers to facilitate payment for their in-app purchase and subscription services by end users. It allows end users to make payments for their purchases by charging payments to their mobile operator’s post-paid and pre-paid bill. Funsea Interactive will be able to facilitate payment for their OTT content related games, music and video-based apps to more than 9.6 million Celcom subscribers in Malaysia through the DCB payment facility offered by Apigate.
According to the latest report by Technavio, the global DCB market is expected to register a CAGR of nearly 9% during 2018-2022. DCB fills a significant gap in the online payments ecosystem in Malaysia especially for mobile content purchase.
Smartphones have rapidly become the preferred device for most Malaysians to stay connected, with more and more users opting for adequate payment facility for premium mobile content.
According to the survey by Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (“MCMC”) done in 2017, the percentage of smartphone users in Malaysia was 75.9% however, only 18.0% are using their credit card for mobile payments. This indicated a large part of the population has access to smartphone content but are unable to pay for premium content.
Incorporated in 2017, Apigate, a subsidiary of Axiata Digital, has built a network of global and regional partners that allows Funsea Interactive to leverage on the 3.1 billion customer footprint and more than 110 MNOs across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. From this collaboration, Funsea Interactive’s involvement in content creation and distribution, particularly in the Southeast Asian region could expand further.
“It is a great honour for us to be able to partner with Apigate as this is another significant milestone in the implementation of our strategy for the development of a seamless payment system whereby users can make convenient and safe payments for their favourite games, music and video apps by billing to their post-paid or pre-paid accounts. As Funsea Interactive is committed to constantly enhance consumers’ experience, direct carrier billing is a step ahead in providing an avenue for a frictionless platform-customer relationship,” commented Tan Kay Yen, Group Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of Green Packet.
“The popularity of DCB is attributed to its more user-friendly payment experience where users would not need to sign in or create an account to make payments, nor do they need to share their personal data online. For Funsea Interactive, our strategic decision is to deepen our involvement in content creation and distribution, particularly in the Southeast Asian region, which will be increasingly pivotal as our Group continues to grow its ecosystem,” Tan added.
Chief Executive Officer of Apigate, Zoran Vasiljev said, “This collaboration adds value to Apigate by tapping into the Malaysian segment who are opting for the convenience of paying for their digital consumption via their post-paid or pre-paid phone bill. Further to this, we look forward to create a long-term collaboration with Funsea Interactive and derive mutual benefits from scale, faster delivery, and richer content for the underserved segment across our footprint in Asia, Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.”
