Amazon May Be Eyeing Up Carrier Billing For Its Mobile Content Business

Amazon has been jumping with two feet into the mobile world -- launching an app storefront, an enhanced selection of cloud-based content, its own customized mobile platform and a tablet to run it in less than a year. Now, as the newest client of UK-based mobile billing company Bango, Amazon could be getting ready to introduce a new way of getting users to pay for all of that.

Publicly-traded Bango released a brief statement to the market to announce it had signed a deal with Amazon to provide the company with its mobile payment services. The announcement was short on details, and a Bango spokesperson declined to give more information when we contacted the company by phone. But it looks like it could be a move by Amazon to introduce carrier billing into its growing mobile operation. A look at what Bango does already could be the clue to how it will work: Bango currently provides mobile billing services for content companies and content distributors, which are integrated into apps (covering both downloads and in-app purchases), mobile web content and other content delivered through mobile devices. The company offers two routes for payment: either via credit cards or by charging directly to a users’ phone bill. The carrier billing element is already used by two other app stores. It could be that Amazon wants to use Bango’s services specifically for its own app storefront, which runs on Android devices, including the Kindle Fire, and was introduced earlier this year. The Appstore has yet to make its way outside of the U.S. and this could be one route to making that a reality, too.