TechCentralTechCentral
    Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentral TechCentral
    NEWSLETTER
    • News

      Alviva shares leap higher on R3-billion take-private offer

      30 June 2022

      Datatec to sell Analysys Mason for as much as R4.1-billion

      30 June 2022

      Eskom ramps up load shedding as crisis deepens

      30 June 2022

      Signs Eskom crisis is creating diesel shortages

      30 June 2022

      Huawei, MTN to help build 5G-powered ‘smart mine’

      30 June 2022
    • World

      Graphics card prices plummet as crypto demand dries up

      30 June 2022

      Bitcoin just had its worst quarter in a decade

      30 June 2022

      The NFT party is over

      30 June 2022

      Samsung beats TSMC to 3nm chip production

      30 June 2022

      Napster plots crypto comeback

      29 June 2022
    • In-depth

      The great crypto crash: the fallout, and what happens next

      22 June 2022

      Goodbye, Internet Explorer – you really won’t be missed

      19 June 2022

      Oracle’s database dominance threatened by rise of cloud-first rivals

      13 June 2022

      Everything Apple announced at WWDC – in less than 500 words

      7 June 2022

      Sheryl Sandberg’s ad empire leaves a complicated legacy

      2 June 2022
    • Podcasts

      How your organisation can triage its information security risk

      22 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E06 – ‘Apple Silicon’

      15 June 2022

      The youth might just save us

      15 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E05 – ‘Nvidia: The Green Goblin’

      8 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E04 – ‘The story of Intel – part 2’

      1 June 2022
    • Opinion

      Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

      21 June 2022

      Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

      13 June 2022

      A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

      19 May 2022

      From spectrum to roads, why fixing SA’s problems is an uphill battle

      19 April 2022

      How AI is being deployed in the fight against cybercriminals

      8 April 2022
    • Company Hubs
      • 1-grid
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Amplitude
      • Atvance Intellect
      • Axiz
      • BOATech
      • CallMiner
      • Digital Generation
      • E4
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • IBM
      • Kyocera Document Solutions
      • Microsoft
      • Nutanix
      • One Trust
      • Pinnacle
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Tarsus on Demand
      • Videri Digital
      • Zendesk
    • Sections
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Motoring and transport
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home»In-depth»Mobile music blooms in Africa

    Mobile music blooms in Africa

    In-depth By Russell Southwood8 June 2013
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email

    musical-notes-640

    The largest of the current online platforms, both on mobile and PC, is iRoking — part of iRoko Partners, which also runs a Nollywood film platform in parallel. It received investment from US private equity fund Tiger Global and has been expanding its reach and recently opened a South African office.

    The iRoking free music online platform has 35 000 tracks in its catalogue, dating from 1963 to the present day, and 75 000 registered users. It also manages more than 70 artists’ YouTube pages, with more than 100m views in the past 12 months. Its deal structure is 60/40 in favour of rights owners, the complete reverse of what the mobile companies offer.

    Its CEO, Michael Ugwu, wants to grow that number to a million views by the end of this year and to reach 10m in five years. Of that number, 70% would be outside Africa. It already has around a million unique visitors for its free Nollywood service, iRokoTV.

    It monetises and protects artists’ content for, among others, P-Square, 2face, Bracket, Flavour, Omawumi, Timaya, Duncan Mighty and Lynxxx. The company has reduced piracy of Nigerian music content to nearly zero. iRoking uses digitally fingerprinted sound recordings on YouTube to ensure rights are protected and also publishes Nigerian music content to the iTunes and Amazon stores for paid consumption by the diaspora.

    iThe company has also launched mobile applications for iOS, Android, Windows and Symbian. The apps allow access to thousands of the latest Nigerian tracks. Users can stream songs over Wi-Fi or 3G.

    Nigeria’s Spinlet, meanwhile, is a mobile music management and storage service launched in January 2012. It claims to have almost half a million subscribers and to be growing at 2-3% a day. Chief marketing officer Mark Redguard says the company has partnered with Tecno to pre-install the Spinlet application. “There has been a very good response from consumers who buy the affordable Tecno N3 smartphone and find they have access to Spinlet.”

    The software is also pre-installed on Samsung’s Galaxy Pocket device.

    Spinlet has also partnered with Etisalat in Nigeria to provide an Spinlet Music plan where consumers can purchase daily, weekly or monthly data plans to access the Spinlet library of music.

    The company is anxious to get a broader presence in Africa and has opened an office in Cape Town and hired 15 developers.

    Then there’s Africori, which offers business-to-business services to African music platforms. It has created its own “laboratory” service by running its own platform, Tavoom Music. Its approach is not about offering in-depth catalogues but seeking to curate “the best in African contemporary music … using the wisdom and knowledge of some of the most talented musicians, DJs and tastemakers in the industry”.

    It is aimed at both Africans on the continent and in the diaspora, but says that it will appeal to anyone interested in African music. One of its innovations is a simple one: it has a free song of the day, which can be downloaded at no charge. Another innovation is that its Music Store is available on the feature-phone platform biNu which has 4,8m users globally, 1,5m of which are in Africa.

    Another contender is Kenya’s Mdundo, which its CEO, Gustav Ericcson, describes as “iTunes for Africa”. It has hundreds of tracks, and one of the musicians closely involved in its founding (at mobile accelerator 88mph) is Frasha from P Unit. Sales are currently being driven by the popularity of Kenya’s Octopizzo.

    It can be accessed by any phone that can get a mobile or Wi-Fi data connection and it is launching an app soon for one of the better known mobile platforms and has Android on its road map. Its innovation is to offer prepaid scratch cards to allow users to buy music. These can also be used by musicians who can put them together with concerts tickets or sell them and keep the revenue.

    Last but not least is Waabeh.com which is run by Kenyan studio owner Tim Rimbui. Waabeh means “awesome” or “cool” in street slang. Launched at the beginning of this year, it has formed a partnership between Intel and Safaricom for the former’s Yolo phone. It garnered 2 000 streams in just two months. It aims to become more widely available on the Web and through an Android app.

    For now, Waabeh has 70 artists with about a thousand tracks. Its innovation is that it offers not just music but audio content for things like books, education and lifestyle content.

    • Russell Southwood is head of Balancing Act Africa
    Gustav Ericcson iRoking iRokoTV Mark Redguard Mdundo Michael Ugwu Spinlet Tecno Tiger Global Tim Rimbui Waabeh
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleWhat caused nationwide ADSL outage
    Next Article ZATS: Ep 261 – ‘Time in Taipei’

    Related Posts

    Graphics card prices plummet as crypto demand dries up

    30 June 2022

    Bitcoin just had its worst quarter in a decade

    30 June 2022

    The NFT party is over

    30 June 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    Billetterie simplifies interactions between law firms and clients

    30 June 2022

    Think herding cats is tricky? Try herding a cloud

    29 June 2022

    How your business can help hybrid workers effectively

    28 June 2022
    Opinion

    Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

    21 June 2022

    Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

    13 June 2022

    A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

    19 May 2022

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2022 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.