Zong Plus 10 Million, Spurring Virtual Goods

Mobile payments platform Zong has processed transactions for 10 million unique users in 2009 alone. That’s quite a milestone for less than a year of operations, and it really speaks to the widespread growth of mobile payments for virtual goods and other commerce exchanges.

Available in 19 countries across 100 carriers, Zong is also announcing new carrier partners in Eastern Europe, Russia, Southeast Asia and South America. That gives Zong a significant amount of growth potential as it looks to dominate the market for mobile payments.

Zong attributes its growth to its easily implemented payment platform and its existing relationship with carriers that spans nearly a decade. But another contributing factor to Zong’s 10 million marker is its involvement with the larger virtual goods trend. As virtual goods become a staple for video games, mobile payments become an increasingly easy way for users to pay for various items.

These video games are becoming more and more social, and more and more popular, seeing viral growth thanks to their presence in Facebook and MySpace platforms. There are also a number of virtual environments such as Gaia that offer mobile payments through Zong, presenting yet another payment option for end users. The benefit for these end users? They don’t have to provide any credit card or other personal information–just their cell phone number and the costs are added to their phone bill.

Given the development we’ve seen for mobile platforms, we’ve seen the virtual goods online market begin to take advantage of cross-device support and distribution, lending yet more opportunities for platforms like Zong to gain new clients.

On a global level, mobile payments are in some ways easier to support and maintain, even for the purchase of online goods. Access to mobile phones outnumbers PC web access in some areas of the world, so building up a system to support a marketplace revolving around one’s mobile phone is a smart move.