Mobile Payment Magazine

B.Shark Holds Forum on Who Will Play a Leading Roll in Mobile Payments

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B.Shark, a Chinese company offering worldwide mobile payment solutions, recently collaborated with SPforum, the largest microblog dedicated to the Mobile Internet industry in China, to hold a forum about who will play the leading role in worldwide mobile payments. The discussion was lively, and experts from Paypal and Alipay participated, among others.

Some highlights from the forum include:

  • “Telecom Operators, Financial Companies (such as Banks) and third-party payment companies (such as Alipay, Boku, Zong) are playing important roles in mobile payment,” said Mr. Peng, an expert from Paypal.
  • Operators have huge numbers of mobile subscribers and have a good understanding of  the behavior of mobile subscribers; and operators’ customer care centers can also be the customer service centers for mobile payment transactions.
  • The advantage of financial companies is that banks have the best understanding of customers’ payment behavior, and bank branches also can be the place to educate customers about how to use mobile payments.
  • Third-party payment companies, such as Alipay, Boku, Zong, Obopay and Square are playing a more and more important role in mobile payments. “Third-party payment companies always try to improve service for customers and integrate resource from different organizations in the payment value-chain; this is the advantage of third-party payment companies,” said Mr.Ding, an expert from Alipay.

In the area of global payments, mobile payment can be divided into three areas geographically. “In Asian countries, especially Japan and South Korea, with the strong support from operators, a large quantity of applications and services based on NFC drive NFC payment forward; In Africa, only around 20%-30% of adults have bank accounts, mobile payment via telecom networks are successful, M-Pesa in Kenya is an example; In America and Europe, the redit card industry is matured, however operators also try to play a role. For example, Everything Everywhere, O2 and Vodafone, formed a joint venture to accelerate the uptake of mobile commerce in the U.K, and AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon also formed a joint venture mobile company named Isis utilizing near-field communication (NFC) technology in the U.S.A,” said ZhongYuan, Zhang, COO of B.Shark. “The fact that eBay bought Zong for $240 million in cash, shows the value of third-party mobile payments focused on operator billing.”

The mobile payment chain is very long. It includes telecom operators, banks, third-party mobile payment companies, mobile phone producers, etc. When all the parties cooperate, the mobile payment will move faster and more smoothly.

Chinese Mobile Game Developers Discuss Expansion to Overseas Markets

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Recently the SPforum Blog, the largest microblog dedicated to the Mobile Internet industry in China, held a forum with topics on how Chinese game developers can expand to overseas markets. The discussion was lively, and more than 100 top Chinese game developers participated.

Some highlights from the forum include:

  • Participants agreed that it is high time for the Chinese game developers to go global. As more opportunities have become available. Many agreed that Chinese developers should be more open and look beyond China to overseas markets. “We will be changed if we cannot change ourselves first,” said Zhishang Wang, CEO of SPforum Microblog.
  • Chinese developers should develop multi-language games for smart phones while developing single-language games for feature phones (non-smart phones). “It is better to develop games in several language versions at the same time since the smart phone AppStore is more often on a global scale,” said Gang Wu, CEO of WiSTONE Entertainment, a famous mobile game developer in China.
  • Games for smart phones can be distributed to Europe, Asia, and Latin America, while games for feature phones should be distributed to countries where Chinese feature phones are exported mostly, such as Vietnam, Thailand, Russia, Brazil, Nigeria, etc.
  • Games for Android can be distributed through third party Android Market. With China, for example, EOE and 1Mobile would be the most popular. These markets already have a large number of users in overseas markets. Games for feature phones can be distributed through the Sky-Mobi Platform, which is the largest Chinese AppStore in feature phones covering users in over 80 countries.
  • Game developers should adopt several payment solutions for its games and users will choose the best solution by themselves. The suggested payment solutions are Boku, Zong, Paypal, B.Shark, etc. B.Shark is the leading mobile payment solution provider in China that have premium short codes in 116 countries, covering 300+ operators, and B.Shark can offer faster after-sales service for Chinese game developers comparing with foreign payment solution providers.

“Chinese game developers should take advantage of Chinese resources when expanding to overseas market, such as quantity of Phone producers in China and those Chinese AppStore solution providers who focus on overseas markets,” said Zhongyuan Zhang, COO of B.Shark.

Source: B.Shark