MTN has expanded its digital content portal, signing an agreement with Content Connect Africa to offer African music by artists from Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, SA and Kenya, among others.

It also has bought rights to exclusive video content featuring popular African artists, including Hugh Masekela, Fela Kuti and Busi Mhlongo. The music is available through its MTN Play portal.

MTN told TechCentral in February that it wanted to become a serious force to be reckoned with in the mobile content and application space by launching an application store and offering digital music downloads and other value-added services.

Christian de Faria, MTN Group’s senior vice-president for commercial services and innovation, said at the time that “more and more people in Africa and in the developed world are going online for entertainment content”.

With Africa’s mobile penetration now stands at about 50% of its 1bn population, MTN says it sees a big opportunity in music being delivered on people’s mobile handsets.

“It’s no longer about selling airtime,” De Faria said. “Now it’s about bundling airtime with products and services. We need to ensure we can offer a range of services, from app stores to music to value-added services like m-health.”

MTN, De Faria said, is “shifting from distributing airtime to being a solution provider” to customers. “We could do it on our own, but we are going into partnership with content providers to offer services such as cloud computing, solutions for small and medium enterprises and to provide rich content in terms of music, gaming, entertainment and news.” — Staff reporter, TechCentral