Indosat and RIM Enable Operator Billing for App World

Research in Motion and Indosat announced a collaboration that allows Indosat subscribers to purchase applications, themes, and games on the BlackBerry App World and pay for them through operator billing.

Indosat subscribers who do not own a credit card or Paypal account will now be able to purchase apps directly and payment will be rendered against their phone credits or monthly bills. This option works through the use of BlackBerry ID for user identification and a password is required for every purchase to minimize the possibility of fraud.

This is the first time this option has been made available in Indonesia by a BlackBerry operator. A similar arrangement was been made by Nokia with Telkomsel, Indosat and XL to enable purchase on its Nokia Store. Apple's App Store still requires a valid credit card to purchase applications for iOS while paid apps in the Android Market and Windows Phone Marketplace are yet to be available in Indonesia.

The rising importance of application and content stores for smartphones, enabling operator billing is one way to ensure a more widespread adoption of apps. Unlike operator billing, network operators do not receive revenue portions from content markets controlled directly by a specific vendor.

Based on data from July 2011, BlackBerry App World is available in 100 countries with an average download of three million apps per day and has surpassed a milestone of one billion aggregated downloads.