Angry Birds maker Rovio partners with Idea Cellular for carrier billing deal

Rovio, the game developer for Angry Birds has entered into a partnership with Idea Cellular to enable carrier billing on its Angry Birds games. Subscribers of Idea cellular will be now able to pay for the game.

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This is the first time ever that the company has entered into carrier billing. Idea subscribers will be able to pay for in-app purchases from their mobile balance. This is applicable for both pre-paid and post-paid customers of Idea. Rovio made the move after observing the high number of Angry Birds users, but an extremely low penetration of credit cards.

"It's hard to monetize a free game in a market where there is limited credit card usage. So, we have struck a carrier-billing deal with Idea. We also have sachet pricing in India with our games in the market," said Alex Lambeek, Chief Commercial Officer at Rovio to The Economic Times. He claims that India has seven to eight million active Angry Birds users.

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Billing through mobile carrier is available through in-app purchases for Angry Birds Classic and Angry Birds 2. There is still a lack of clarity if other games from Rovio will be available to Idea subscribers with carrier billing. The carrier billing is for premium feature of the Angry Birds game that has to be purchased. To be able to pay through in-app purchases for the Angry Bird games, users will have to download the Angry Bird games from the a co-branded portal that is run by Idea.