PayPal Inc. plans to provide a mobile payments system that would enable Chinese game developers on the Android mobile platform to tap new international markets including North America and Europe, the company recently announced.
The San Jose, Calif.-based third party payments provider plans to offer game developers for Android the use of PayPal’s Mobile Express Checkout, enabling them to immediately process in-game purchases, it said in a press release in late October.
“Facing intense domestic competition and difficulties in revenue generation at home, China’s game developers have started to eye the global market,” Chen Zhang, a director in PayPal’s Shanghai office, tells PaymentsSource.
PayPal’s goal is to increase the speed and security of such in-game purchases, processing game-related purchases in as little as two clicks and without storing sensitive consumer financial information on users’ mobile devices.
For China’s game developers, PayPal’s new embedded payment model can greatly increase their income, as it would provide them with direct payments versus sharing profits with third parties, he says.
“For game players, PayPal’s mobile payment solution enables them to complete purchases within the game interface at any time without the need to quit the game and enter personal financial information.”
PayPal will not charge game players any fee apart from the price of the game and in-game purchases on the mobile payment platform, but game developers would pay a fee to PayPal, adds Zhang.
“The developer fees are lower than the fees typically charged by other payment processors,” says Zhang.
PayPal expects mobile transaction volume on Mobile Express Checkout to quadruple from $750 million in 2010 to $3.5 billion in 2011, he adds.
China is the fourth-largest market for PayPal ranked by total payment volume, according to Zhang. “ PayPal’s total payment volume in Greater China reached US$4.4 billion in 2010, an increase of 44% over the previous year.”
What do you think about this? Send us your feedback.
