The first deployment of carrier billing with Schibsted group companies is for the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. Aftonbladet Plus was the first digital subscription in Sweden that customers could pay for by conveniently being charged directly to their mobile phone bill. 

Schibsted launched carrier billing for its users through Fortumo’s Payments API. This gives Schibsted full control over the payment flow and enables advanced features of carrier billing such as token-based charging, dynamic pricing and automated refunds. 

The turnkey solution accelerates time to market for launching carrier billing since only one integration is needed on the merchant side: new telcos can be added seamlessly thanks to pre-existing integrations that Fortumo already has in place with the telcos. 

While most Western consumers have a credit card, carrier billing is often preferred for digital content payments thanks to its simplicity and security. Users do not need to create or log into any accounts, nor do they need to share personal information online. Payments are completed in a few clicks and only the user’s phone number is processed. 

This has given carrier billing a market share of 13.6% in Western Europe (with bank cards at 27.5% and digital wallets at 26.9%) for digital content payments, according to SuperData Research.