Now With 8 Million Users, Cutesy Messaging App Cubie Adds Easy Mobile Payments Via Your Phone Bill

We know that cutesy sticker/emoticon packs are critical to the success of messaging apps in Asia – and they’re also a great way to monetize. That’s why Taiwan-made messaging app Cubie has teamed up with mobile payments service Fortumo to allow people to pay for these virtual stickers via their phone bill. Cubie has eight million users right now.

Cubie – which was recently incubated at 500 Startups – has rolled out this mobile payment system in 44 countries around the world, and reckons that it’ll be particularly useful in Southeast Asia where fewer people have credit cards, or are just generally wary of using them to buy things online. After quietly adding this in a few countries last week, Cubie’s James Hill says that it’s already noticeably helping:

Anecdotally, Fortumo say that by offering this service, companies can increase their revenues ten-fold – and so far we’ve seen a massive uplift in transactions from Taiwan, Thailand, and Malaysia, where we went live last week (as in one sticker pack brought in the same revenue in a day via Fortumo that our previous top seller did in its first week on just iTunes and Google Play). We will be sending a notification today telling the rest of our user base that they can also pay via their phone bills.

The payment screen will look like this:

Fortumo has worked with big-name game studios and social platforms to make mobile payments easier, such as Rovio (makers of Angry Birds), Facebook, and Badoo.

Cubie will add more countries in due course; James says they’re eagerly “waiting for approval from authorities in Canada, Ireland, and South Korea, which is standard as they take a bit longer”.

Among Cubie’s eight million users, the fastest growing markets are the US, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and Latin America.

Cubie’s large stickers and other cute features – the app also encourages doodling and drawing – have been copied by other popular apps in the region, such as WeChat, Line, and KakaoTalk.