This summer we were honored when IMVU, the leading avatar-based social network and industry pioneer, chose us to be their mobile payments partner. With over 40 million users all over the world, IMVU built their own in-house mobile payments solution. After operating their own platform for a couple years, they decided to try us on for size.
We think the fit is nice: IMVU is seeing a 50% lift in revenue after switching to ZONG. Learn all about the background and how they did it in our IMVU Case Study.
We’ll be at the NY Games Conference this Wednesday, Sept. 30th. Hill Ferguson, our head of Product and Marketing, will be on a monetization panel discussion at 4 pm. Richard Borenstein (richard [at] zong [dot] com), our head of sales, will also be around. Send him a note if you’d like to meet up while we’re in NY from the 29th-1st. See ya there!
Howdy. Interested in learning all about Virtual Goods and monetization strategies? Come to the ENGAGE! Expo this Wed and Thurs for a full line-up of great speakers and networking opportunities.
Use this promo code and get 15% off the ticket price for an All Access pass: VALVIP
If you’re coming to the show, be sure and checkout the monetization panel discussionat 4:00 pm on Thurs. Our Founder & CEO, David Marcus, will represent ZONG. If you’d like to arrange a meeting with a ZONG representative, just reply in the comments or shoot us an email at sales [at] zong [dot] com. Hope to see you there!
We’ve submitted a proposal to South by Southwest (SXSW) to talk about the future of mobile payments. The good folks at SXSW liked our proposal enough to put us up for a vote, so we need your help. How can you help, you ask? Easy. Just go here and click the Thumbs Up button next to our proposal. You will need to register to vote, but that only takes about 10 seconds. Thank you for your support.
We’re now live in Mexico and Chile, giving you the ability to accept mobile payment from over 90 million consumers. But we’re not done yet, Papi. Stay tuned for Colombia and Brazil and also some more gems in Eastern Europe. Checkout our Coverage to see where we’re live and where we’re going.
We’re excited to be processing mobile payments in two more countries this month. Same as in most every other country, we have 100% mobile carrier coverage to maximize your payment conversion rates. Contact us if you want to turn on these markets for your account.
Other news: check out our May Newsletter for a smattering of Zong news, humor and other tidbits.
We recently conducted a consumer survey to better understand our customers’ customers. As marketers, the downside to having a frictionless end user payment experience is that we don’t always know a lot about the people making the payments. How old are you? Why did you select the “Pay by mobile” option? Do you even have a bank account? These are the kinds of questions our survey was designed to answer.
Here’s what we learned, in classic “Myth vs Fact” format:
Myth - Mobile payment users are just a bunch of 12 year olds using their parent’s cell phones to make payments. Fact - Over 88% of mobile payment users are 18 or older. The distribution skews younger with about 60% between 18 and 30 years old.
Myth - Mobile payment users only use mobile because they don’t have bank accounts or credit cards. Fact - 76% of mobile payment users have a bank account or credit card.
Mobile payment users have plenty of options, which begs the question, “why do you use your mobile phone to pay?”
We’re glad we asked:
34% said they used mobile because “it’s fast and easy” 22% said because “it’s fun” 20% said because “i know it will work” 14% said because “it doesn’t seem like I’m spending real money” 10% said because “i don’t have a bank account or credit card”
Folks, mobile payments are becoming mainstream.
Good stuff.
Yesterday we launched coverage in Australia across all wireless carriers. Just like in the US, Canada and Europe, we are connected with over 95% of all wireless subscribers wherever we’re live. It’s something we think is really important. After all, as a user, it’s a crumby experience to be led to believe you can make a payment only to find out your carrier isn’t supported.
We’re rolling out lots of new countries in the coming months. Check out our coverage page to learn more about where we are and where we’re going.
This time the votes are being cast by investors. The recipient? Beijing-based Changyou.com, the game developer behind the wildly popular MMORPG Tian Long Ba Bu (”Novel of Eight Demigods”). Changyou’s (CYOU) stock price jumped 25% on it’s opening day of trading on the NASDAQ, confirming investors optimism for the company’s future prospects. In 2008, it generated over $200 million in revenue, most of which is derived from the sale of virtual goods. Still, they have a ways to go to catch up with virtual goods behemoth Tencent. These guys rang up $1 billion in revenue last year, about 70% of which is derived from the sale of virtual goods. Here’s to the rest of the world waking up to such an enormous opportunity!
This summer we were honored when IMVU, the leading avatar-based social network and industry pioneer, chose us to be their mobile payments partner. With over 40 million users all over the world, IMVU built their own in-house mobile payments solution. After operating their own platform for a couple years, they decided to try us on for size. 
We’re excited to be processing mobile payments in two more countries this month. Same as in most every other country, we have 100% mobile carrier coverage to maximize your payment conversion rates. Contact us if you want to turn on these markets for your account.