Green Packet Berhad’s Joint Venture company (JV), Funsea Interactive Entertainment (M) Sdn Bhd (Funsea Interactive) entered into a partnership with Apigate to enable Direct Carrier Billing (DCB) for Celcom Axiata’s customers.
Direct Carrier Billing (DCB) is traditionally used by mobile content creators and developers to facilitate payment for their in-app purchase and subscription services by end users. It allows end users to make payments for their purchases by charging payments to their mobile operator’s postpaid and prepaid account.
Via the partnership, Funsea Interactive will be able to facilitate payment for their OTT content related games, music and video based apps to more than 9.6 million Celcom subscribers in Malaysia through the DCB payment facility offered by Apigate.
Incorporated in 2017, Apigate, a subsidiary of Axiata Digital, has built a network of global and regional partners that allows Funsea Interactive to leverage on the 3.1 billion customer footprint and more than 110 MNOs across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. From this collaboration, Axiata said that Funsea Interactive’s involvement in content creation and distribution, particularly in the Southeast Asian region could expand further.
Funsea Interactive is a joint venture between Green Packet’s unit NGT Networks Ptd Ltd (40%) and Funsea (60%), a subsidiary of Beijing TalentWalker Interactive Entertainment Co., Ltd (BT). Beijing TalentWalker is a leading smartphone game developer and publisher with over 70 partners in the gaming industry. It has developed and published more than 100 social and smartphone games on various platforms worldwide. BT is an affiliate company of Shenzen-listed Zhejiang Dilong Cultural Development Co. Ltd. with a market capitalisation of 6.75bil renminbi (estimated RM4.12bil).
“It is a great honour for us to be able to partner with Apigate as this is another significant milestone in the implementation of our strategy for the development of a seamless payment system whereby users can make convenient and safe payments for their favourite games, music and video apps by billing to their post-paid or pre-paid accounts. As Funsea Interactive is committed to constantly enhance consumers’ experience, direct carrier billing is a step ahead in providing an avenue for a frictionless platform-customer relationship,” commented Tan Kay Yen, Group Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of Green Packet Berhad.
“The popularity of DCB is attributed to its more user-friendly payment experience where users would not need to sign in or create an account to make payments, nor do they need to share their personal data online. For Funsea Interactive, our strategic decision is to deepen our involvement in content creation and distribution, particularly in the Southeast Asian region, which will be increasingly pivotal as our Group continues to grow its ecosystem,” Tan added.
Chief Executive Officer of Apigate, Zoran Vasiljev said, “This collaboration adds value to Apigate by tapping into the Malaysian segment who are opting for the convenience of paying for their digital consumption via their post-paid or pre-paid phone bill. Further to this, we look forward to create a long-term collaboration with Funsea Interactive and derive mutual benefits from scale, faster delivery, and richer content for the underserved segment across our footprint in Asia, Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.”
