Google launches carrier billing for Play Store in India; users can now pay via phone ballance

Google in partnership with Idea Cellular, has launched India’s first carrier billing for Google Play. Idea users can now pay for Google Play apps, books, music, and movies through their phone balance, no credit/debit card required.

The carrier billing service now lets the users pay from their Idea billing account. For prepaid customers, the amount will be deducted from their main balance while the postpaid  customers will see their purchases on billing statements. To use carrier billing, users just need to choose “bill my Idea Cellular Account” during the purchase. However, there will be a convenience charge on purchases – on a Rs. 10 purchase, the charge will be approximately Rs. 1.50.

Google is also expected to roll out this service in coming months with other telecom companies too. The service is already active in 41 countries around the world and Google has 100 DCB partners.

“Like with lower minimal pricing and pre-paid vouchers, we hope to make it easier for people to pay for the content they want on Google Play. And we also hope that this will help nurture the developer ecosystem in India, so that developers can grow their businesses on Google Play connecting to Indian customers.”

– Kunal Soni, Head of Business Development for Google Play, India and Southeast Asia.