Premium Goods Revenue Share

2010 has been an important year for the world of micro-billing. Since the turn of the year, increasing numbers of Mobile Operators have displayed a willingness to entertain the concept of a Premium Goods Revenue Share (PGRS). Infact, several operators in the Nordic region have already started to offer these rates to companies offering a “Premium Goods” service. Concert and Subway tickets have been a big hit, with Subway tickets via SMS now accounting for almost 75% of all sales.

More recently (Q3), Irish operators Vodafone, O² and Meteor have expressed their commitment to bringing PGRS to the Republic of Ireland. The M50 in Dublin will soon be accepting mobile payments.

PGRS gives businesses, who previously balked at the idea of losing such a high percentage of the transaction’s value, the opportunity to sell their product over a new medium, whilst breaking down the barriers that previously restricted services with a tight margin.

About txtNation

txtNation is an award-winning provider of billing, content and mobile messaging solutions.
Our focus on flexible solutions, intelligently supported, has made us one of the most trusted providers in the business.
Our established connections to the world’s mobile network operators, and our ability to source new connections on your behalf, means we help your business at prices that fit every budget.
We have developed strong partnerships with industry to ensure our solutions are saleable, well-connected and secure.
txtNation is an established registered company owned and operated privately in the United Kingdom, with an excellent history of innovation and support for business.

You can find out more about txtNation and the services we offer at www.txtnation.com or by emailing sales@txtnation.com or calling +44 (0)1752273491.

txtNation Events in November

Telemedia 360 Meet txtNation!
Contact EMEA Territory Manager Danny Marino if you wish to join us at our table during this event.

E-mail: d.marino@txtnation.com
Office: +44(0)1752 273490
Mob: +44(0)7807758439

The event will take place on the 16th and 17th of November 2010, you can view the full schedule for this event here.

Also next week:

ME Awards
txtNation are Listed under the ‘Best Transaction Provider’ category. The ME Awards will be held on November 18th 2010 and are sponsored by Microsoft.

Everyone at txtNation is really excited about being nominated and attending the event itself should be a great industry celebration.

About txtNation
txtNation is an award-winning provider of billing, content and mobile messaging solutions.
Our focus on flexible solutions, intelligently supported, has made us one of the most trusted providers in the business.
Our established connections to the world’s mobile network operators, and our ability to source new connections on your behalf, means we help your business at prices that fit every budget.
We have developed strong partnerships with industry to ensure our solutions are saleable, well-connected and secure.
txtNation is an established registered company owned and operated privately in the United Kingdom, with an excellent history of innovation and support for business.

You can find out more about txtNation and the services we offer at www.txtnation.com or by emailing sales@txtnation.com or calling +44 (0)1752273491.

Monetizing Android Better

The Android market is growing and brings with it many opportunities for developers of mobile applications to get their products out there and monetized easier than ever.

The last few years have been dominated by iPhone and the ease with which you can buy and pay for iPhone apps. But look deeper and there are flaws to the platform that makes it a rigid, one-dimensional platform for the distribution and sale of apps. Android allows more possibilities and not having an established, exclusive, billing portal like the APP store in place it means there is room to innovate and find more effective billing mechanisms that can give multilayer possibilities for billing, with up sell and cross-sell models easier to implement and perform.

Developers for Android need the ability to monetize to cover costs of service creation and maintenance. There are some other platforms that theoretically can allow one to pay for an app in the Android Store, but they also have their limitations, and don’t allow anyone to reach full potential.

The first is that they do not support in-application payments for Android apps, meaning no billing options are available once the user has loaded the application and using it, meaning immediately you cannot try to monetize on upgrades or ‘additional features’ that could be up sold to existing users of an app. Having in-app mobile payments is the most logical choice.
The other issue is that these options only cover a few countries where developers can publish paid apps. If your country was not among them, you simply cannot publish any paid app in the Android Market. In-app Mobile Payments is a natural choice to me.

txtNation has worked intensely over the last year to develop a strong focus on in-application billing and can now enable clients to rollout their Android applications in over 80+ markets.
The payment trigger is SMS but the user experience is very different. The billing occurs in-application with a ‘canned’ SMS being sent when the user clicks a ‘purchase’ or ‘upgrade’ button within the applications own environment. The user need not exit the application, sending in an SMS with specific content, this is handled for them, and they can remain in-application during the entire transaction.

Danny Marino, Territory Manager EMEA said: ‘We are already seeing many clients around the world deploy our in-application billing model and its working really well. Suddenly transactions are taking place in countries where before a developer would have very little chance of selling to. We did receive objections in the early stages regarding the out payments on SMS compared to other payment methods however what is a higher % of nothing?! Which was the sales potential people had in markets such as Brazil, Nigeria, Thailand and many others before they implemented our SMS billing in-application.’

Mobile Payments can be a bit more expensive than typical mobile app store billing infrastructure, but in many cases the default billing is not sufficient or just not available for you – in our case we have both issues.’ Stated a client who came to txtNation recently to look at the options available.

txtNation believes it is key to be able to offer operator billing in as many markets as possible, naturally widening the sales potential with the aim to ultimately generate more revenues. It is pretty obvious why certain App stores are struggling and a lot of it is down to ease of use and the scope of purchasing being limited. We would like to invite Android developers use our solution and focus on distribution whilst txtNation takes care of the billing.

About txtNation

txtNation is an award-winning provider of billing, content and mobile messaging solutions.
Our focus on flexible solutions, intelligently supported, has made us one of the most trusted providers in the business.
Our established connections to the world’s mobile network operators, and our ability to source new connections on your behalf, means we help your business at prices that fit every budget.
We have developed strong partnerships with industry to ensure our solutions are saleable, well-connected and secure.
txtNation is an established registered company owned and operated privately in the United Kingdom, with an excellent history of innovation and support for business.

You can find out more about txtNation and the services we offer at www.txtnation.com or by emailing sales@txtnation.com or calling +44 (0)1752273491.

ME AWARDS 2010: Finalists confirmed – txtNation in ‘Best Transactions Provider’ Category.

With hundreds of companies submitting nominations for the eagerly awaited event, txtNation are delighted to be able to say that we have made it into the finals list.
The Mobile Entertainment Awards takes place in around 7 weeks in London and will be one of the most prestigious award ceremonies for mobile in this year’s calendar.
Danny Marino, Territory Manager EMEA says: ‘Being a Best transactions provider nominee for 2010 makes us extremely proud. We’ve put in extensive work this year to better our micro-payments solutions, building on the commercial offering by removing tiers in our carrier relations around the world as well as bolting on some additional PSMS markets which were previously unreachable. Our payment windows now offer service providers unbeatable coverage right across the globe, and manage to do this whilst still offering good payout levels in every country. It’s not just about having the reach anymore, it’s about having a real opportunity in each market to make good money.’

JunglePay and mENABLE payment solutions remain big among online services for offering quick and accessible payments to their users. The solutions presence on sites around the world continues to grow almost daily and with the improvements txtNation has made this year we expect this to continue well into 2011 / 12, making them online payment solutions of choice.
Everything about the payment solutions have been designed to make payments easy, accessible and ensures that users have choice enough not to leave the site without having paid.
The actual mechanics of making a payment are very simple – keeping the users on the same page and completing transactions within only a few short steps.

For clients they are affordable, easy setup solutions which provide internationalised payment options right from the get-go.
ME confirmed that winners will be decided by a judging panel, which is ‘drawn from the ME contacts book and consists of around 400 execs from all sectors of the business.’

About txtNation

txtNation is an award-winning provider of billing, content and mobile messaging solutions. Our focus on flexible solutions, intelligently supported, has made us one of the most trusted providers in the business. Our established connections to the world’s mobile network operators, and our ability to source new connections on your behalf, means we help your business at prices that fit every budget. We have developed strong partnerships with industry to ensure our solutions are saleable, well-connected and secure.txtNation is an established registered company owned and operated privately in the United Kingdom, with an excellent history of innovation and support for business.
You can find out more about txtNation and the services we offer at www.txtnation.com or by emailing sales@txtnation.com or calling +44 (0)1752273491

Nigeria : a new mobile market favourite.

Mobile is massive everywhere, we all know that but: the real growth in mobile belongs to the developing world. Prime emerging markets for mobile are countries like Brazil, Poland, India and China. But what of Africa, the last great unexplored continent for technological and commercial advancements.

Well, Africa is often unfairly overlooked. For example, look at the extraordinarily progressive outlook of Vodacom in South Africa.
But South Africa has always been something of an exception – the industrial powerhouse of the continent.

How interesting, and encouraging, then to hear that there’s plenty going on in the heart of Africa – in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and elsewhere.

For 2010 in Nigeria: The mobile subscriber base in the country has hit 78.5 million lines, the Nigerian Communication Commission has disclosed.

Kemmy Areola, Africa Representative for txtNation says: As with technologies elsewhere in Africa, the growth of mobiles appears in large part to have been driven by the comparatively young (18-34) and its users are predominantly (67%) though not exclusively male. This demographic is also right for many of the commercial opportunities for mobile content, billing for online games and interactive campaigns for competitions and voting surrounding popular culture’.
txtNation continues to grow on the number of services it has to market in the African territories and those markets continue to show growth in revenues. The company has operated PSMS in Nigeria specifically, for 6 years now and can boast robust and reliable local connectivity, solid revenue payment conditions and a host of pre-built solutions clients can use out of the box, getting them to market with speed and ease.

About txtNation

txtNation is an award-winning provider of billing, content and mobile messaging solutions.
Our focus on flexible solutions, intelligently supported, has made us one of the most trusted providers in the business.
Our established connections to the world’s mobile network operators, and our ability to source new connections on your behalf, means we help your business at prices that fit every budget.
We have developed strong partnerships with industry to ensure our solutions are saleable, well-connected and secure.
txtNation is an established registered company owned and operated privately in the United Kingdom, with an excellent history of innovation and support for business.

You can find out more about txtNation and the services we offer at www.txtnation.com or by emailing sales@txtnation.com or calling +44 (0)1752273491.

Mobile payments increased 38 percent worldwide since January: txtNation

TxtNation is bullish about mobile payments
While various mobile payment mechanisms are still battling it out for supremacy, in general the growth of mobile payments continues to be robust, according to a txtNation executive.
Mobile payments are growing worldwide, and mobile penetration rates in Scandinavia are currently amongst the highest in Europe, with every person having at least one mobile device and consumer spending being amongst the highest in the western world.
Accepting mobile payments across Scandinavia has already proven to be a hit with customers, with most preferring the instant purchase of Premium SMS as a billing mechanism, according to txtNation.
Adam Williams, Network Coordination at txtNation says: ‘For me, SMS has always been about the convenience, bundled with a degree of anonymity. Many services that utilize mobile payment rely on impulse buys. In order to get as many of these as possible, these services need to streamline the purchasing process. Mobile payment makes it quick and easy. Send a unique payment ID, for example “PAY ABC” to a short code, receive a response within 10-15 seconds—done, billed, service granted’.
Credit card payment requires users to insert their name and full address, not to mention the card details. PayPal helps, but only if you’ve got a registered account, which takes too much time in the first place and turns users off. WAP Billing, often bundled with MSISDN forwarding, is seemingly still battling with various regulators across the world.

Adam Williams goes on to state: ‘Mobile payments are on the up.’
Since the turn of the year txtNation have seen an increase of more than 38 percent in mobile payments, across the globe, just through users taking advantage of our JunglePay and mEnable payment options.
We find that many businesses are currently opting for the convenience of these pre-built solutions, rather than an API service.
Interestingly, we’re seeing more operators opening up to the idea of selling physical goods via mobile payment, by offering a slightly increased revenue share for physical goods purchases.
In the past txtNation has predominantly worked with clients from the gaming sector, offering interactive games that sell virtual currency, or providing access to a special “members” area.
More recently, there has been an upturn in enquiries from other sectors.
For example, mobile ticketing, where businesses offer their consumers the option to purchase and receive their concert or match ticket via SMS, has become very popular.
Orange’s British promotion “Orange Wednesdays” has blazed a trail for this type of service provision.
Subway and bus tickets in particular are becoming increasingly popular too, with more than 10 percent of purchases being made via SMS.
We expect see SMS growth increasing higher and higher as its continually adopted and implemented in more and more everyday life actions live buying a tube ticket or getting 5% of your aftershave as you walk it to the till.

About txtNation

txtNation is an award-winning provider of billing, content and mobile messaging solutions.
Our focus on flexible solutions, intelligently supported, has made us one of the most trusted providers in the business.
Our established connections to the world’s mobile network operators, and our ability to source new connections on your behalf, means we help your business at prices that fit every budget.
We have developed strong partnerships with industry to ensure our solutions are saleable, well-connected and secure.
txtNation is an established registered company owned and operated privately in the United Kingdom, with an excellent history of innovation and support for business.

You can find out more about txtNation and the services we offer at www.txtnation.com or by emailing sales@txtnation.com or calling +44 (0)1752273491.

txtNation take a bite out of the Nordics

txtNation look to continue their expansion in the Nordics with a aggressive ramp up strategy planned for Q4 this year. Since entering into agreements with the majority of Scandinavian operators for increased payouts and faster payment cycles for mobile payment services, txtNation are looking to raise the bar in this region.

txtNation is one of Scandinavia’s most innovative mobile companies and premium mobile aggregation providers. With clear and consistent focus on the latest mobile technologies, txtNation are constantly creating value-added services for customers in this region.

txtNation Director Michael Whelan quotes “This is another significant expansion for us in the Nordics and confirms our position in this market being able to offer such value added services.”
txtNation are providing Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finish markets with these new, improved rates, available across all main operators and are urging service providers working in this region to contact business support for rates and terms of service.

Accepting mobile payments across Scandinavia has already proven to be a hit with customers, with most preferring the instant purchase of Premium SMS as a billing mechanism. txtNation executives see the opportunity for continuing to evolve their connectivity options past competitor’s, allowing mobile billing to evolve to its fullest.

Mobile penetration rates in Scandinavia are currently amongst the largest in Europe with every person having at least one mobile device and consumer spending being amongst the highest in the western world.
Michael Whelan goes on to say, “What separates Scandinavia from the rest of the world is their appetite in leading the pack when it comes to mobile billing. We are in collaboration with mobile operators in this region, to offer multiple price points for customer billing and fast payout cycles, incomparable with the rest of the world.”
Following SMS Mobile Payments, txtNation will shortly look to provide WAP Billing and MMS services, starting with Denmark, targeting 2011.

You can find out more about txtNation, its premium SMS solutions, and compliance in Scandinavia by visiting http://www.txtnation.com, emailing sales@txtnation.com or calling +44 (0)1752273491. Latest news can be found on txtNation’s blog at http://blog.txtnation.com.

mBILL – Simple Mobile Billing
mBILL is a platform for empowering organisations to charge for products and services via a user’s mobile phone. mBILL takes the unpredictability and complexity out of leveraging mobile billing solutions to end-users around the world, across countless networks. Compatible, cost-effective, and consistent: mBILL connects your products and services to millions of mobile phone users in the UK and internationally. mBILL is a sophisticated service, without the complexity and lead time of other customised billing solutions.

About txtNation
txtNation is an outstanding multi award-winning solutions provider across billing, content and mobile messaging platforms. Focussing on sophisticated, ease-of-use solutions designed and supported by knowledgeable technical and customer support teams, txtNation have consistently proved itself one of the most efficient and cost effective messaging, billing and content providers in the business. txtNation’s global reach means that we can facilitate mobile messaging services and products via the SMS Gateway across North America, Europe, Australia and Africa. txtNation have developed strong partnerships with many major industry leaders to ensure our solutions are compatible, well-connected and adequately secure. txtNation have well over 7000 clients large and small on every continent who are already experiencing the outstanding advantages which txtNation has to offer. txtNation’s products and services increase customer acquisition, improve loyalty and build trusted brands and awareness through direct, personal, easy, and immediate communications.

txtNation partner with Tesco Mobile in Ireland

txtNation, Leading Mobile Billing provider in Ireland and other worldwide markets have announced today they will now be offering Tesco Mobile for Premium Rate SMS services.

This new mobile operator connection complements the existing Irish networks, Vodafone, 02, Meteor and 3.

txtNation will allow service providers looking to operate across Tesco Mobile a streamlined set-up and approval process, resulting in faster time to market.

Michael Whelan, Director of txtNation, says “By working with Tesco Mobile, it opens our business up to a fast growth, dynamic user base of ‘Pay As You Go’ users, growing month on month. As of now we are one of only a handful of service providers in Ireland with this connection. This will give us 100% coverage in this market, servicing across all operators.”

Tesco Mobile predict fast growth to continue into 2011 and like txtNation ensuring the all service providers in the Irish market seek pre approval pre-launch of new services from ComReg, the Irish regulatory body.

Together with this improved connectivity, txtNation is pushing forward an updated set of guidelines and internal procedures to guarantee compliance with changing industry regulations.

txtNation acknowledge Tesco Mobile’s commitment to fantastic value which has a strong resonance in the Irish market.

You can find out more about txtNation, its premium SMS solutions, and compliance in Ireland by visiting, emailing or calling +44 (0)1752273491. Latest news can be found on txtNation’s blog at http://blog.txtnation.com.

mBILL – Simple Mobile Billing
mBILL is a platform for empowering organisations to charge for products and services via a user’s mobile phone. mBILL takes the unpredictability and complexity out of leveraging mobile billing solutions to end-users around the world, across countless networks. Compatible, cost-effective, and consistent: mBILL connects your products and services to millions of mobile phone users in the UK and internationally. mBILL is a sophisticated service, without the complexity and lead time of other customised billing solutions.

About txtNation
txtNation is an outstanding multi award-winning solutions provider across billing, content and mobile messaging platforms. Focussing on sophisticated, ease-of-use solutions designed and supported by knowledgeable technical and customer support teams, txtNation have consistently proved itself one of the most efficient and cost effective messaging, billing and content providers in the business. txtNation’s global reach means that we can facilitate mobile messaging services and products via the SMS Gateway across North America, Europe, Australia and Africa. txtNation have developed strong partnerships with many major industry leaders to ensure our solutions are compatible, well-connected and adequately secure. txtNation have well over 7000 clients large and small on every continent who are already experiencing the outstanding advantages which txtNation has to offer. txtNation’s products and services increase customer acquisition, improve loyalty and build trusted brands and awareness through direct, personal, easy, and immediate communications.06/09/2010 – By Keli Smith

txtNation partners with M-Cloud for Payment Wrapper technology

This new partnership enables customers in a total of over 70 markets to purchase through their local mobile phone provider bridging Premium SMS, via txtNation. Over 200 Mobile Network Operators can now be used to clear web payments, live on the M-Cloud platform.

Michael Whelan, Director of txtNation adds, “This partnership takes txtNation billing platform and aggregation services to new levels with M-Cloud’s innovative wrapper technology. By interfacing txtNation to M-Cloud, we bring out the best in billing via mobile operators across millions of applications and games.”

Combining an elegant customer interface and extremely easy billing the M-Cloud solution is a first-class billing payment service for device manufactures and gaming companies alike with customers being presented with the payment to unlock full version of applications and mobile games.

Michael Whelan, goes on to say “We are delighted to have this partnership with M-Cloud. M-Cloud brings with them years of experience in the handset industry, with their associations with the entire top gaming manufactures, this billing service is becoming the norm for pre installed applications and games across all handset manufactures.”

This partnership between txtNation and M-Cloud enables mobile commerce to a more familiar mobile billing flow, to enable customers to pay easily with simple one click actions, through their mobile phone accounts, pre-paid or post-paid via Premium SMS billing.

Ian Turnbull, President of mCLOUD quotes, “The partnership with txtNation into our platform allows mobile publishers to more efficiently distribute their content globally.”

The first games manufacturer to move forward with the M-Cloud wrapper in this new partnership with txtNation is PopCap Games, a leading mobile games manufacturer that provides over 30 games to date. The advanced wrapper technology delivers a sophisticated payment solution that cover all major mobile devices enabling customers to demo PopCap games in a ‘try and buy’ fashion.

About txtNation

txtNation is an award-winning provider of billing, content and mobile messaging solutions.
Our focus on flexible solutions, intelligently supported, has made us one of the most trusted providers in the business.
Our established connections to the world’s mobile network operators, and our ability to source new connections on your behalf, means we help your business at prices that fit every budget.
We have developed strong partnerships with industry to ensure our solutions are saleable, well-connected and secure.
txtNation is an established registered company owned and operated privately in the United Kingdom, with an excellent history of innovation and support for business.

You can find out more about txtNation and the services we offer at www.txtnation.com or by emailing sales@txtnation.com or calling +44 (0)1752273491.

Ireland premium rate services and ComReg

As the curtains close on RegTel, the new industry monitor for Irish PSMS, ComReg steps up.

One month into the enactment of new legislation in Ireland for premium rate services and the rise of ComReg, txtNation applauds the developments the new regulator has brought to the market.
ComReg’s new code of conduct has created a clear set of guidelines to service providers, and with it they have implemented an unambigouis and structured path to becoming approved in the market place.

Whilst ComReg now require all D2C service providers to be independently registered with them the process is a quick one and txtNation clients are able to complete this documentation and process it via txtNation’s direct channels. txtNation operates as a tier1 provider in Ireland and this has been of tremendous advantage in being able to work directly with the carriers in getting up to speed with the new code of conduct and campaign approval processes now in force. Since going direct in Ireland txtNation has had to become educated in all aspects of the marketplace for premium rate and it is now really paying off as we are able to make the most of this new, clearer line to campaign approval.

‘Ireland has, in the last few years, presented itself as a real opportunity for micro-payments based services and that opportunity continues to grow. We see service providers re-structuring their billing model to accommodate the use of micro-payments and this immediately showing evidence of an increased uptake. Suddenly users can interact and participate in online services that do not demand traditional banking means and heavy payment processing. In an instant online services using SMS payments can revert back to being accessible, affordable and immediate to access’. Stated Danny Marino, Territory Manager at txtNation. ‘After all, wasn’t this why we all moved online in the first place?!’

txtNation is really excited about the year ahead for premium rate services in Ireland and being exceptionally fortunate to be able to offer some of the best conditions in the market are keen to see more and more service providers come onboard and share in reaping the rewards of the groundwork now in place. With a industry monitor like ComReg now firmly in place too, Ireland presents itself as a solid, sustainable option for online revenue generation, like never before.

About txtNation

txtNation is an award-winning provider of billing, content and mobile messaging solutions.
Our focus on flexible solutions, intelligently supported, has made us one of the most trusted providers in the business.
Our established connections to the world’s mobile network operators, and our ability to source new connections on your behalf, means we help your business at prices that fit every budget.
We have developed strong partnerships with industry to ensure our solutions are saleable, well-connected and secure.
txtNation is an established registered company owned and operated privately in the United Kingdom, with an excellent history of innovation and support for business.

You can find out more about txtNation and the services we offer at www.txtnation.com, or by emailing sales@txtnation.com or by telephone +44(0) 1752 273491.