iTunes carrier billing expands to UK’s EE, Germany’s Telekom, Orange in France & Spain

Joining standard payment methods accepted on Apple’s content stores—such as Paypal, plastic money and iTunes credit—customers in some European countries can now have their app and media purchases charged to a monthly mobile phone bill from their carrier.

This feature, dubbed carrier billing, is now available to Apple customers and EE subscribers in the United Kingdom. In Germany, carrier billing is now supported by Telekom. Lastly, carrier Orange has turned carrier billing on for its subscribers in France and Spain.

Carrier billing is especially helpful if you don’t have or are not eligible for a credit or debit card, can’t buy iTunes codes or don’t have a bank account to use with Apple’s content stores.

According to Apple, carrier billing is now available across these markets and carriers:

  • Austria (A1, Drei and T-Mobile)
  • Belgium (BASE-PayByMobile and Proximus)
  • Bulgaria (Telenor)
  • Czech Republic (T-Mobile)
  • Denmark (3 (Hi3G Denmark ApS))
  • Estonia (Tele2)
  • Finland (DNA)
  • France (Bouygues Telecom and Orange)
  • Germany (O2 and partner brands, Telekom and Vodafone)
  • Hong Kong (SmarTone and 3HK)
  • Hungary (Telenor)
  • Italy (Wind Tre)
  • Japan (KDDI, SoftBank and NTT DOCOMO)
  • Latvia (Tele2)
  • Lithuania (Tele2)
  • Malaysia (Celcom, Digi, Maxis and U Mobile)
  • Netherlands (KPN)
  • Norway (Telenor)
  • Portugal (Vodafone)
  • Qatar (Ooredoo)
  • Russia (Beeline, Megafon and MTS)
  • Saudi Arabai (Zain)
  • Singapore (M1 Limited)
  • Slovakia (Telekom)
  • South Africa (Vodacom)
  • Spain (Orange and Pagos Online Movistar)
  • Sweden (3 (Hi3G Access AB), Tele2 and Telenor Sverige AB)
  • Switzerland (Swisscom)
  • Taiwan (APTG, FET, Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Mobile and T Star)
  • Turkey (Turkcell)
  • United Arab Emirates (Etisalat and Du)
  • United Kingdom (EE)

Our step-by-step tutorial explains the process of setting up direct carrier billing as your preferred payment method for App Store, Mac App Store, iTunes Store and iBooks Store purchases made across your iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV devices.