Major players such as Sony and Universal have been slow to enter the African market and realise they may be losing out to smaller and more agile newcomers. “In the west, you only have to speak to four labels and you have 90% of the market covered. “If you want to build up a catalogue of music in Nigeria, you have to speak to hundreds of people,” says Guillermo Escofet, senior analyst at Informa. The unstructured nature of the market has held companies back from pursuing the digital music business in Africa. Now we make it available cheaply on the internet,” says Diene. “The African diaspora wants productions from their own countries, but they have to go to Clignancourt or Harlem to buy CDs. “This is the first time a music company is starting from an African point of view and then spreads outwards.”Īrtists or aggregators can upload music to the site and receive 90% of the money generated from selling it, with 10% going to Menyou. “Our first music content was African, says Kisito Diene, the company’s manager for Africa. Using a model that helps unsigned African musicians, Stockholm-based Menyou provides a digital link between musicians and their fans. Eric Idiahi, the company’s chief executive, plans to have a million users by the end of 2012. It has 200,000 subscribers who download music to handheld mobile devices. ![]() Nigerian investors launched Spinlet, a music download platform, in May. Schumann hopes that 40% of Simfy’s customer base will come from Africa in five years’ time. Simfy’s service is limited to South Africa, leaving the majority of the continent without access. ![]() “We’ve looked at Africa as a fan- tastic opportunity for growth, and South Africa is a natural starting point,” says Simfy Chief Executive Gerrit Schumann. Simfy, a German company based in Cologne, teamed up with South Africa’s eXactmobile in August to provide a music streaming service for computers and smartphones for R60 ($7) per month. This lags well behind the projected $1.2bn in revenue from mobile music in western Europe in 2016. ![]() ![]() Informa, a UK- based telecoms and media consultancy, estimates that mobile music revenue in Africa will more than double by 2016, generating $474m. There are ways of tricking the system – a Google search will show you how – and this shows that the music business has been slow to develop the African market.Īs the race for the continent’s digital market heats up, companies are launching streaming and downloading platforms, some in partnership with mobile network operators.
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