Fortumo today announced it has launched carrier billing in Kenya for digital content merchants, according to a press release. Thanks to the partnership, more than 18 million Safaricom customers from Kenya will now be able to make payments online and inside mobile apps by charging purchases to their mobile phone bill.

“Emerging markets like Kenya have become the biggest drivers of smartphone growth globally as cheap smartphones are becoming available to millions of people in growing economies," Gerri Kodres, chief business officer of Fortumo, said in a statement. "Meanwhile, digital content merchants are struggling to generate revenue from these users due to low credit card penetration. Here Fortumo helps solve the issue for merchants by allowing any person – banked or unbanked – to make payments online through carrier billing instead."

While overall mobile penetration in Kenya is still at around 65 percent (approximately 27.3 million mobile phones with a population of 42 million), the market is growing very fast and already an estimated 67 percent of all phones sold are smartphones, Fortumo said in the press release. Meantime, there are only 200,000 credit cards in circulation (0.3 percent penetration) making international online transactions impossible for the majority of Kenyans.

Kenya is the third country covered by Fortumo carrier billing in Sub-Saharan Africa, with established connections already in place for Nigeria and South Africa.