In a regular series, Mobile World Live‘s Asia Editor Joseph Waring provides a regional roundup of news snippets:

Globe sees profit in carrier billing
Globe Telecom said its direct carrier billing service for apps has become a major driver in encouraging smartphone users to get into the habit of buying apps.

The Philippines’ second largest operator said the number of customers who have either bought an app or bought items inside apps on the Google Play Store has more than doubled since it introduced the service in October.

Globe customers also have been able to make purchases from the Apple Store using its GCash American Express Virtual Pay since 2012, with transactions increasing 65 per cent last year.

The operator said more than 300,000 customers have used its Virtual Pay service. iTunes App purchases accounted for 27 per cent of the total last year.

True, China Mobile launch low-cost roaming
True Move and China Mobile, five months after announcing a strategic partnership, have introduced discounted international roaming between China and Thailand.

China Mobile acquired an 18 per cent stake in True for THB28.6 billion ($880 million) through a private share placement in September.

True customers in Hong Kong and China can use China Mobile’s network without changing their SIM card. Calls to Thailand are THB9 per minute, calls within China are THB5/minute and an SMS is THB3. Customers will need to pay a service charge of BHT99 per month.

True said the rates are more than 80 per cent lower than the regular roaming fees.

KDDI’s revenue tops DoCoMo’s for first time
NTT DoCoMo’s revenue for the nine-month period ending 31 December dropped below rival’s KDDI for the first time.

DoCoMo’s revenue during the period dipped 1.1 per cent from the previous year to JPY3.33 trillion ($27.8 billion) while KDDI’s revenue increased 5.4 per cent to JPY3.35 trillion, Japan News reported. SoftBank’s revenue jumped 41 per cent to JPY6.43 trillion.

DoCoMo, however, outperformed KDDI in operating and net profits in the period.

Daum Kakao to double marketing spend
Daum Kakao plans to make aggressive investments over the next two years to increase its footprint at home and overseas, rather than focus on increasing returns to shareholders.

Choi Se-hoon, the firm’s co-chief executive, said during an earnings call the company would more than double its marketing budget to KWR80 billion ($72 million) this year to launch new services and improve its existing ones, the Korea Herald reported.

The firm, South Korea’s leading web portal and mobile messenger service, has ambitions to catch up with competitors such as Naver, which runs LINE, and Alibaba.

iPhone 6 lift’s Pegatron’s sales
Steady orders for the popular iPhone 6 helped Pegatron Technology increase revenue in January by 29 per cent year-on-year to TWD118.05 billion ($3.75 billion).

Taiwan’s electronics contract manufacturer expects iPhone 6 orders of 40 million units in the first quarter, the same level as in Q4, DigiTimes said.