India's third-largest carrier Idea Cellular is all set to roll out Play Store carrier billing in the country. According to Gadgets 360, the carrier's partnership with Google will be announced later this week.
In a statement shared to Gadgets 360, Google said:
We are in the process of adding direct carrier billing to Google Play in India on Idea Cellular so that people can more easily pay for their favourite content. We will have more news to share soon.
Google mentioned that carrier billing will be available on other carriers, but initially it will be limited to Idea subscribers. In a country with very limited credit and debit card penetration, carrier billing is seen as the way forward to boost purchases of digital content.
The feature allows you to charge purchases on the Play Store to your prepaid or postpaid account. If you are a prepaid customer, the amount for the app or game you're buying is automatically deducted from your balance. If you're on a postpaid connection, you'll see the items added to your monthly bill.
From a thread on Reddit, it looks like carrier billing is already rolling out to a few Idea customers. We'll share more details once the partnership is official.
