Africa’s music streaming and audio marketplace Waabeh has hit one year after launch, recording tremendous milestones in the now hotly contested Africa streaming market.
The music streaming service revealed to TechMoran that it had passed over 10, 000 downloads and was serving over 330,000 streams by January 14 2014.
“About a year ago we launched Waabeh, guided by a radical idea that African musicians could finally control their destiny, reap from their labor of love all the while giving their fans a place where they could listen to and download their favorite music, said Tim Rimbui, Waabeh co-founder and CEO.
“Our promise was a solution that empowered the artists with simple upload and distribution over the internet and mobile apps, gave them a higher sales royalty as compared to the telcos that were keeping up to 85% [Waabeh keeps 30%] in addition to giving their fans easy and familiar payment options such as mobile money [MPesa,] and credit cards,” Rimbui added.
Waabeh has expanded beyond it’s initial base of Nairobi, Kenya and is now serving musicians and their fans from all across the world in such varied places like The Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and even Japan. Rimbui says 2013 was a tough yet fruitful year and Waabeh is glad to be part of the larger African tech community offering working solutions to uniquely local problems.
Waabeh is not done yet. “We still on the lookout for more great music, podcasts, audiobooks as well as content partners.” Those interested can talk to Rimbui here.
Below is an infographic of their progress.