Something that has been quite overdue for sometime now, third party platforms Operator Billing will soon be a thing in Kenya. Safaricom has been running this billing by airtime for products they sell through their channels. In Kenya, there is quite a large number of unbanked, and those with credit cards an even smaller number.
This means that paid apps is not quite a business, so even while people might want to buy that one app or two, or even purchase an in-app credit for a game this is quite limited to cards. There are independent pre-pay cards available, but most of them present an extra task of loading and a cost onto it. Those with debit cards often find themselves with bank limitations due to fraud protection.
Enter Operator billing
Airtel and Nokia sometime back rolled out operator billing for the Symbian platform, a move that was quite futile for a dying platform. Microsoft will now roll out Operator billing in Kenya to ease the process of payments and open up payments to the millions of Kenyans who own smartphones. What this does then is make people spend more and thus it makes sense as a Kenyan developer to develop with the Kenyan in mind as they will be able to consume your paid apps and pay for them.
The roll-out looks like it will be limited to the Windows Platform, that is unless we get any word tomorrow regarding Nokia X platform which runs Android. We will update you should we hear something new, meanwhile you can tel us in the comments whether this is something you were looking forward to getting.
[UPDATE] Read About Nokia X prospects and other new details here.
