AUSTRIA—B-to-B direct carrier billing company DIMOCO has added a fifth European country to its portfolio—Germany. With its direct connections to mobile network operators, DIMOCO specializes in providing business customers with direct carrier billing products to bill digital content via cell phone billing and mobile messaging products to handle SMS transactions. DIMOCO also offers direct carrier billing in Spain, Poland, Italy and France, and now Germany.
With 115.2 million mobile subscribers, a mobile handset penetration of 119.9 percent in comparison with 35.7 percent credit card ownership and the growing digital industry, Germany shows enormous potential for billing digital content via direct carrier billing, said the company. It added that whereas the publishing market is expected to grow to 2,287 million USD in 2017, the gaming market is estimated to be worth 1,589 million USD, followed by the home video market with 674 million USD and the digital music industry with 620 million USD revenue in 2017.
“Direct carrier billing is an additional payment method to credit card billing and gives digital content providers the chance to maximize revenues and to reach their entire target group,” said DIMOCO CEO Gerald Tauchner. “The sales potential in big economies like Germany is tremendous, as this study by Price Waterhouse Coopers confirms."
Regarding the mobile market in Germany, DIMOCO says 115.2 million mobile subscribers are shared among the four big German mobile network operators—Telefonica Germany (O2 Brand, market share 16.6%), E-Plus Group (market share 21.9%), Telekom Germany (33.7% market share) and Vodafone (market share 27.8%). As the worldwide trend shows, the smartphone penetration rate is also increasing in Germany and is currently at 33.9% compared to 66.1% legacy handsets available on the market.
The digital content market is also expected to grow tremendously in the next years. The Price Waterhouse Coopers “Entertainment and Media Outlook 2014 – 2018” publication confirms the development in the digital content industry: The ePublishing segment, the area with the biggest growth, will grow from 655 million USD in 2012 to 2,287 million USD revenue in 2017. The home video market is set to grow from 162 million USD revenue in 2012 to 674 million USD in 2017, and the eMusic market from 387 million USD in 2012 to 620 million USD revenue in 2017. Another huge market is the eGames segment. The revenue growth rate shows a development from 889 million USD in 2012 to 1,589 million USD in 2017.
To tap into this enormous digital content potential, DIMOCO offers companies a variety of mobile payment products. Depending on the business customers’ needs and the mobile network operators’ capabilities, digital content on the web can easily be billed as one-off or subscription service between a tariff range of 0.19 and 30 EUR at Vodafone, Telekom, E-Plus, O2 plus the virtual mobile network operator Mobilcom Debitel.
“As DIMOCO we provide the technical hub between all the mobile network operators on the one hand and the business customers on the other hand," Tauchner explained. "The main advantage for digital content providers is that they only need to integrate one connection and technical interface into their infrastructure."
