Non user-friendly payment processes are holding back the effective monetisation of mobile apps, according to a survey from infrastructure survey company MACH, undertaken at last month’s App World 2010 event. According to the  company, operator billing was identified by 59 percent of respondents as being “fundamental to the ongoing monetisation of this potentially lucrative market,” with 82.5 percent of respondents stating that in-app one-click billing will have the greatest impact in increasing revenue from mobile apps. Another key issue identified was the ability to more easily settle with content and application stores across the globe, which was cited by 77.5 percent of those polled.

According to Charles Damen, head of the Content & Applications business at MACH, “for mobile operators to really maximise this potential opportunity, monetisation for both the operator and applications provider will be key. The rapid explosion of available mobile products, apps and services requires a much more sophisticated and direct billing method than the industry has previously been geared up to offer. Operator billing, as evidenced by this recent research, is quickly emerging as the best approach for meeting these challenges.”

MACH did not state how many people it surveyed, or how many of the total were developers – it only said that its respondents were “mobile industry professionals.”