Boku, a global leader in mobile payments, yesterday announced the acquisition of Germany-based mopay, one of the largest carrier billing companies in the world and one of Boku’s leading competitors.
The combination of the two carrier-billing giants will help drive mobile payment standardisation for merchants, carriers and consumers, as the acquisition makes Boku the largest standalone provider of carrier billing-based mobile payment services in the world.
It will offer mobile payments in more than 80 countries around the world, with a reach close to 5 billion consumers. Over time, the companies will merge operations and operate under the Boku brand, while adding marquee merchant customers like Valve, gameloft, and Wargaming, as well as add hundreds of other merchants to Boku’s existing global merchant base that includes Facebook, Sony, Spotify, and Electronic Arts.
The merger represents a combination of two largely complementary organisations, with similar value propositions to carriers and merchants across the virtual, digital and physical goods categories. The combined assets of the two companies will offer greater scale and operational efficiency and a more standardised carrier billing solution, to the benefit of merchants, carriers and consumers alike.
Jon Prideaux, CEO of Boku said: “By coming together we’ve created a company that can realise the vision of charging purchases to your phone bill as a truly global payment method at scale. Together, Boku and mopay serve some of the largest digital merchants in the world and we have a tremendous pipeline in the works.”
Ingo Lippert, CEO of mopay said: “This is a merger from strength. Both companies have strong growth plans, but felt that our customers would be best served by coming together to build a market leading mobile payments platform.”
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