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After 4 years of distributing music, Mdundo recently launched its streaming feature both on the website and the android app in a move set to make it Africa’s biggest music distribution and streaming service as Safaricom mulls relaunch of Skiza as a competing music streaming service.
Mdundo says its newly launched streaming feature has over 30 million streams in 2017 alone helped by its expansion into new markets, a huge music catalogue as well as increased sign ups by artists.
“A big chuck of our growth the past 6 months can be accredited to new markets. Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, Ghana, Cote d’Ivory, Zimbabwe, Cameroon and Congo are some of the fastest growing markets. We experience a need for our service in most African markets, people want to access music in easier ways, especially the local tunes, and there are currently no easy and legal way to do this” Mdundo CEO, Martin Nielsen remarks.
Originally launched in East Africa in 2013, the music service is celebrating 8 million user growth the past 12 months. Mdundo says its now experiencing 1.5 million listeners each month and the number of songs downloaded from the platform have doubled year on year since it started. The music distribution service has also had its learnings on the music consumption behaviour and trend over the period.
“Hip Hop and Gospel genres remain to be the most popular genres over the past few years, which explains East Africa’s music consumption behaviour. We’ve seen artists such as Khaligraph Jones, King Kaka, The Kansoul and Darassa top the Hip Hop charts.” Mdundo Head of Music & Operations, Wanjiku Koinange explains. “Gospel artists have also not been left behind and currently, the top Mdundo Gospel musicians include Willy Paul, Mercy Masika, Collo and the duo Kymo and Stigah.” she adds.
With almost 2 million monthly active users from across the continent and 40,000 African musicians, Mdundo is set to face Safaricom which is revamping its SKIZA ringtone platform into a fully-fledged music streaming service. Safaricom is now hosting copyright and entertainment law experts to give assistance to artists before it relaunches its www.skiza.com which currently has 11 million users and over 132,000 tunes, 125,000 of them by Kenyan artists.
