Boku and Zong launch mobile payments for Android devices

In a vote of confidence for Google’s mobile operating system, mobile payments providers Boku and Zong are announcing today they will enable their services for Android mobile devices.

Boku and Zong are rivals in the emerging market for mobile payments, which are turning out to be popular ways to pay for apps on phones and social networks. With these services, you can pay for an app by entering your mobile phone number and then verifying your transaction. You can then immediately use the app, with the cost billed to your mobile phone. It’s easier than entering a 16-digit credit card number.

Zong is enabling its one-click mobile payment solution for Android and is opening a private beta test for developers to integrate its payment option into their apps. Boku is doing pretty much the same thing with what it calls a “one-tap” mobile payment service, a play on the “one-click” payments popularized on the Web by Amazon.com.

Both services could be a shot in the arm for the Android apps market,which needs a lot of help in catching up with the iPhone. Both Zong and Boku already support iPhone transactions. But Android is growing fast, with more than 100,000 new Android phones activated each day. It just needs better monetization.

Ron Hirson, founder of San Francisco-based Boku, said in an interview that Boku will enable mobile payments for Android devices in 60 countries. Boku’s software development kit is in alpha testing now. Last week, Boku announced it raised a strategic investment round from Andreessen Horowitz.

Boku didn’t disclose the size of that round, but it previously raised $38 million in two prior rounds from Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, Khosla Ventures and DAG Ventures.

Boku was founded in 2008 and bought the startups Mobillcash and Paymo to jumpstart its payments business. The company has 50 employees. Zong, meanwhile, raised $15 million in funding from Matrix Partners in April.

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