Mobile phones have become ubiquitous for the on-the-go-user as well as the on-the-go gamer, and as a result developers have been aiming for iOS and Android to give them an “in” to the market of all these people with computers in their pockets. When it comes to monetizing apps, developers want to be able to get money from people with as little fuss as possible and that’s where in-app payment processor Fortumo comes in.

Most in-app purchases have been handled through marketplaces delivered by phone OS (Google for Android and Apple for iOS) but not everyone has easy access to credit cards while they’re playing a game and few want to keep using their credit card after purchasing an app (or a game). Expanding markets such as those in China, Brazil, India and others have players who may have smartphones, but they don’t use credit cards as often as users in US or the EU. An in-app purchasing solution like Fortumo can give developers the option to offer app users the use of their mobile bill to reflect payments.

According to Fortumo CEO Rain Rannu, this means that there are vast markets opening up for app developers and especially casual game developers to reach out to owners of smartphones who want to use their phone bill as their payment method rather than a credit card.

“There are about 1.5 billion credit card holders in the world, but about 5 billion mobile users: this means that mobile payments can be used by at least three times more people,” said Rannu on the subject of smartphone ownership and mobile payments. “This is especially important in emerging markets like Brazil, China and India where credit card penetration is especially low compared to mobile phone penetration. Furthermore–a few years ago most of the phones in China, Brazil and India were feature phones.”

Many games monetize with virtual items and these are impulse buys

Most games on the market monetize with microtransactions selling a $0.50 or $3 there—the items that they process happen to be a hat for the in game avatar, extra levels, different-looking interfaces. Some games even sell extra lives, or boosts to play, even ways to interact differently with the game. All of these are small, often silly elements additional to gameplay that don’t have much practical value beyond adding fun or costumes to a game.

The result to this is that in-game purchases are “impulse buys.” The sort of person who purchases a virtual item is a person who saw it, became interested in that moment, and then clicked to buy it. If there’s any barrier to buying that item—the need to enter a credit card number into the app, or anything that slows users down—will mean the loss of a potential customer.

Fortumo works to make impulse purchases as frictionless as possible by allowing developers to use the app users’s mobile phone bill to make the charge. In this fashion, no extra action is needed from the user to purchase a virtual item and it enables rapid acceptance of impulse buys.

This market, smartphone users who would make impulse buys, is only expanding says Rannu.

”What has happened now, however, with the introduction of $50 Android phones in places like China and elsewhere is that a majority of the new phones sold in these countries are already or will soon be smartphones,” adds Rannu. “Every month, more new smartphones are activated in China than there are in the US. This means that the same apps that people in US and Europe use can be used in all those emerging markets but developers are facing challenges monetizing these users as traditional payment methods like credit cards don’t work there. This is one of the key drivers for and reasons behind the enormous growth of mobile payments”

Fortumo works closely with mobile gaming giants such as Badoo, Rovio, Digital Chocolate, Popcap on Android so the processing company has a long, broad swath of powerful people in this basket as well. Developers seeking a solution that will help increase their monetization and market (especially if they’re moving into China or Brazil) would do well to look this company up.

Adding to their extensive library for developers to allow in-app payments, Fortumo announced the addition of API for Windows 8 recently. In order to entice more developers to try out and use their platform Fortumo is offering the service commission-free, in partnership with Microsoft, for six months. This should bring yet another platform to the already broad reach with in-app purchase for Android and further with  mobile payments for HTML5 apps.