Millions of smartphones will be bought during the holidays and the new owners' urge to quickly fill them up with apps and games is a great monetary opportunity. That's why Google seems to be eager to cross off many of its carrier billing deals before the end of 2014. So after Saudi Arabia's STC and Indonesia's Indosat, direct billing is expanding to 7 new operators in Europe.
First of all, three new countries join the list with available carrier billing: Hungary with Telenor, Romania with Orange Romania, and Turkey with Turkcell. The Czech Republic sees the addition of O2 to the existing T-Mobile, Italy now has TIM besides Wind Italy, Poland adds Orange to a list of 3 other supported operators, and H3G (which, from what I can tell, seems to be the same as Three) in the UK joins T-Mobile, Three, and O2. Every potential new Google Play buyer counts, but the most significant expansions in this list are TIM and Turkcell, the leading operators in Italy and Turkey respectively with over 30 Million subscribers each.
If you are a customer of any of the carriers listed above, you should start seeing the option to add your operator as a means of payment in Google Play. That way, you don't have to mess with credit cards, Paypal, or gift cards to get your apps and media. All your purchases will instead be added to your monthly bill.