Mobile Commerce Provider Cited As A Mobile Difference-Maker
London, UK – December 1st, 2015 – Upstream, the leading mobile commerce provider for digital goods and services in high growth markets, has been named a mobile vendor to watch, by Gartner. In Gartner’s report titled “Market Trends: Direct CSP Billing Worldwide, 2015,” Upstream is recognized as a difference-maker among Direct Carrier Billing (DCB) Providers, allowing Communications Service Providers (CSPs) to achieve greater success across global markets.
One of the few providers selected, Upstream is featured for its ability to provide local mobile content to consumers in markets across the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia via its MINT engine, providing unique billing capabilities. Upstream is also praised for its ability to handle third-party content billing, which offers an additional value-add for DCB providers as they can subsume content owners or app stores in the value chain. Additionally, the report highlights Upstream’s approach of both tailoring content to consumers—such as language lessons delivered via SMS, mobisites or apps, which Upstream designs and packages—as well as accommodating local payment preferences.
“This is major win for Upstream. We’re thrilled to be included as a Vendor to Watch in Gartner’s Market Trends 2015 report for CSP billing worldwide,” said Marco Veremis, CEO, Upstream. “This has been a year of intense mobile growth as, for example, major technology companies such as Netflix and YouTube continue to tackle emerging markets via new subscription services. The year ahead will be bigger than ever for mobile. We’re eager to partner with major brands, mobile networks, tech services and CSPs alike in order to deliver valuable, relevant and affordable mobile services and content to consumers across the globe.”
Gartner’s Market Trends report is here, highlighting that while direct carrier billing is mature, the choice to use it more aggressively lies in the hands of CSPs. The report’s author is William Hahn, Principal Research Analyst serving networking and communication services. Hahn identifies the DCB solution providers as exemplary of competitive advantages they can bring to CSPs.
“Upstream currently serves approximately 90 mobile operators in over 50 countries, presently reaching 1 billion consumers” says Veremis. “This year our platform has helped to transact more than EUR300 million in purchases by an estimated 70 million mobile users. Our one-of-a-kind technology offers flexible and smart billing schemes, which adapt to the user’s pre-pay balance. To effectively monetize digital services in growth markets, knowing which time of day to make a charge attempt is as important as offering attractive prices for attractive for low-income markets. Using an end-to-end subscription management that has the ability to curate, bundle, market, deliver and bill mobile solutions, we’re looking forward to continued growth”.
