Fortumo, a firm whose in-app purchasing SDK is the market-leading solution among thirdparty Android app stores, has launched a new version which will allow in-app transactions to be carried out offline.

This is aimed at emerging markets in particular, where data connectivity may be limited or unavailable in some areas.

Fortumo also uses carrier billing rather than card payments, which means that in-app purchases are simply added to the user's mobile operator bill.

This is particularly significant for countries like India, which has 45 times fewer credit cards than mobile phones - not to mention 80 percent of the population living in rural areas with weak network coverage.

No card, no connection, no problem

“Carrier billing works best in emerging markets where a large number of users do not own a credit card to make payments online," says Fortumo CEO Martin Koppel.

"But even when carrier billing is available, users who are not connected to the internet have so far been unable to make payments. Fortumo’s Android SDK changes this by enabling transactions for offline users as well."

"This increases revenue for app stores and developers publishing in these stores even further when compared to traditional credit card based billing solutions,” he concludes

For more information of Fortumo, you can visit its website.