Branding raises mobile sales 20 per cent

ON THE quiet, the UK mobile network operators have been moving towards a generic 'branded' mobile payments system called 'Payfor it'. Ericsson has revealed that its implementation has raised sales by 20 per cent.

Peter Garside, regional manager with Ericsson IPX, told the INQ that his company has been providing Payforit services to three UK operators - T-Mobile, Virgin, and Vodafone since December 2006.

The idea with Payforit is that the operators qualify suppliers to offer the service in order to offer a trusted mobile payment service to subscribers.

Ericsson had previously being offering its own 'unbranded' service which it simply called WAP billing. The company's research has shown that amongst its own customers, those who have switched to Payforit have seen remarkable results.

The number of one-off payments - for items such as ringtones - has risen by an impressive 20 per cent. Ericsson currently provides Payforit to around 11 content providers offering approximately 130 services.

According to Garside, the rise is because the Payforit brand "has instilled confidence in consumers. They now feel far more comfortable about purchasing content when they see the Payforit name."

Garside claims that other companies have gained accreditation to offer Payforit but they haven't gone live yet.

Payforit is one of the mobile billing solutions offered by a recently launched service - Wapple Canvas. The other two solutions are Bango and MyGamma.

Wapple Canvas enables its customers to swiftly create a mobile site using web-based tools rather than requiring any specialist knowledge of WAP, for example. Customers are charged upwards from £500 per annum.

Driving force behind Wapple is John Leftwich who INQ readers may recall from his days with The Beast in the UK. "Tools like Wapple promise to do for the mobile Internet what products such as Frontpage did for the Web," Leftwich claimed. µ

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