Direct carrier billing provider, Boku announced that carrier-billed subscriptions for music streaming service Spotify, which launched in Japan in September, are now available across the country’s three largest carriers.
In partnership with KDDI, Softbank and NTT Docomo, more than 158 million mobile subscribers can now use their mobile phone as a payment option for their Spotify Premium subscriptions. This marks the Japanese launch of Boku’s Phone-on-File technology, which allows merchants to manage renewal charges on a user’s mobile account in the same way as they do with cards.
Spotify gains the ability to utilize carrier billing as a powerful way to acquire new Japanese customers who find using their mobile phone number for purchases to be the easiest and most secure way to pay on any device, including PC and mobile web-based purchases. Once a free Spotify Premium trial has expired, the subscription fee will automatically appear on the user’s mobile phone bill.
Japan is a strong market for carrier billing with 77% of internet use being through mobile. This entrance into Japan is also an expansion of Boku’s existing global partnership with Spotify that already includes the UK, Germany, Italy the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia.
Spotify is the first music service in Japan to offer both a free ad-supported service and an ad-free subscription service, which enables users to listen to music wherever and whenever they are – even while offline.
To pay for Spotify via carrier billing, users can simply enter their mobile phone number to start a free 30-day trial of Spotify Premium and when the free trial expires the user is charged via their phone bill. Spotify begins charging users for Premium on the first day following the end of the trial, on a recurring monthly basis.
Jon Prideaux, CEO of Boku
Japan is the world’s second largest music market and no alternative payment method has proved more effective at monetizing Japanese consumers online than carrier billing. Our partnership with Spotify and the three largest carriers in Japan is a massive win for all parties in terms of revenue growth, new subscriber acquisition, and consumer satisfaction.
