Viettel, the largest mobile operator in Vietnam, and mobile payments company Fortumo Tuesday announced a partnership through which Fortumo will bring direct carrier billing to Viettel subscribers. More than 55 million Vietnamese will soon be able to purchase digital content online and charge payments to their mobile phone bill, according to a press release.

Fortumo will provide the billing platform to Viettel to enable the launch of carrier billing on major app stores, as well as for many top Asian digital content merchants including Box TV, Ditto TV, Gaana, UCWeb/Alibaba, Mobogenie, Octro and Games2Win, according to the announcement.

"Mobile operators get the best value out of their billing platform if they enable payments for app stores but also for video and music streaming providers, game developers and other digital merchants," said Gerri Kodres, chief business officer at Fortumo. "Viettel is the leading mobile operator in Vietnam and we are excited to work together with them in launching carrier billing for app stores as well as for other top tier digital companies."

Fortumo's direct carrier billing platform is currently available to over 2.5 billion consumers in 16 Asian countries. Globally, Fortumo covers 94 countries and reaches 4.3 billion consumers with direct carrier billing.