CHATSWORTH, Calif. — Global Adult Billing announced fourth quarter SMS traffic figures Monday that showed 12 percent growth from Q3 figures.
In an economic climate that is seeing most sites' conversions decrease, SMS sales continue to rise and are showing a tendency to continue their upwards trend despite the current economic slowdown. While credit card sales continue to fall, SMS sales are still producing growth.
"More people are reaching credit limits on their cards and are finding it harder to re-finance that credit; as a result a lot more monthly re-bills are failing," observed sales manager Scott Pattenden. "Despite this, people consider paying their cell phone bill as a monthly ‘essential’ — this means that mobile purchasing is one of the easiest ways for these customers to re-subscribe."
For many years, the number one complaint about phone billing was that the system lacked the ability to offer subscription billing services. With SMS, that is resolved so, just like credit card billing, monthly recurring billing can be set up and even enables limited "trials" which then recur at fixed higher monthly amounts.
SMS billing is offered at a significantly higher price point to cover the fees charged by the mobile network operators (from 20-50 percent depending on the country).
"The purpose of SMS billing is to encourage joins from members who currently are un-able or unwilling to use standard billing methods," said Pattendon. "The end user tariff is normally about 30 percent higher than the card option; this means program owners can be confident when implementing our billing that they will maintain their margin and that it will not simply divert traffic from their existing payment providers.”
To sign up or find additional information, visit GlobalAdultBilling.com or contact [email protected], ICQ 474-675-328.
