Amazon And Mobile

By Sarah Perez

Very interesting, Bango. Sometimes the biggest deals are the ones where everyone is

keeping mum. That seems to be the case with this little blip of news coming out of

the mobile phone payments company Bango today. The company announced it has signed

a deal with Amazon.com, Inc. to provide “services.” And yep, that’s just about all

it’s saying.

Bango provided a short statement, noting that Amazon is now a Bango customer, which

makes it the third major customer to sign up for the mobile payments platform.

Previously, Bango signed deals with Research in Motion (RIM) and Opera, both of

which involve offering carrier billing services for those companies’ app stores.

(Carrier billing is the payment mechanism that allows users to pay for purchases on

their mobile phone bills.) However, in Opera’s case, customers are able to use a

credit card or carrier billing to purchase apps.

Bango won’t confirm any details of the new agreement, including how much the deal

is worth or even what services, specifically, it will be providing to Amazon.

But the conclusion being drawn from the news, of course, is that Bango will soon be

providing carrier billing services to Amazon for its app store, the Amazon App

Store for Android, which is available to any Android user (in the U.S.) as an

installable app. The Store is also now a prominent feature on the company’s new

Android-based tablet, the Kindle Fire. What’s interesting, however, is that the

Fire doesn’t come in a 3G version, which could entail a carrier relationship. It’s

a Wi-Fi only device. Perhaps Bango’s news, then, hints at something yet to come?

Then again, given that Bango also provides analytics services, it could be

something less exciting (to consumers, at least) than paying for apps via your

phone bill.

According to a Bango spokesperson, the company couldn’t share any information

beyond what it has already provided due to “commercial sensitivities.”

“This was very much just a regulatory announcement that Bango was required to

release as it is a publicly quoted company. We hope to be able to release more

information in 2012,” the spokesperson said.

The full statement reads as follows:

    Bango (AIM: BGO) announces today that it has signed an agreement to provide

services to Amazon. The terms of this agreement are not being disclosed. The Board

believes it is too early in the relationship to accurately forecast the level of

business which it may generate.

http://www.amazon.com/ref=as_li_ss_sm_fb_us_ndp_tl?_encoding=UTF8&tag=whismyblna-

20&linkCode=shr&camp=213733&creative=399841