Mziiki is a new African music streaming service that offers a diverse array of African musical talent alongside international content – for free.
The rhythm of Africa is freely available on the Mziiki app and mobile site, which is an ideal platform for artists to reach wider audiences, for telcos to sell data and for African music lovers to gain easy access to their favourite music.
Mziiki reaches an impressively diverse audience across the globe, has an established footprint and a vast musical repertoire, and is fast becoming Africa’s largest free multi-platform digital streaming service.
“The digital streaming service offers an impressive pool of talent throughout sub-Saharan Africa with an opportunity for artists to monetise their music and launch their career using a hassle-free process. This can be done on a secure system that has superb reach so much so that there is the opportunity to achieve international recognition and revenue,” says Arun Nagar, CEO of Spice VAS Africa, the developers of Mziiki.
“With over 800 exclusive licenses from African artists Mziiki also drives revenue for telcos by offering an end-to-end platform to drive data usage, new subscription revenues and an opportunity to engage with customers,” says Nagar.
“Mziiki is the only music streaming service that offers such a rich variety of African music and is the ideal place to visit for fresh sounds and unique talent. It’s a space packed with gifted artists that are accessible to millions, and is perfectly timed to take advantage of the trend in rising mobile adoption and data usage across the African continent,” Nagar says.
The mobile data traffic forecast by Cisco has shown that the Middle East and Africa have the strongest growth of any region at 133% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) with mobile data traffic rising 13 times from 885 petabytes per month in 2012 to an expected 11,2 exabytes in 2017.
According to research, there are around 9,4-million data-enabled phones in Kenya, 34,5-million in Nigeria, 8,9-million in Ghana and 27-million in South Africa, while on-demand music streaming has increased by 42% in the first half of 2014 compared to the same period last year (Nielsen SoundScan).
Of fiscal interest is the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) stating that revenue from subscription-based streaming services topped $1-billion for the first time in history in 2013.
Mziiki is the modern way of staying in touch with music and users love the fact that they can try out new talent for free. The featured artists are passionate about the brand too as the app provides users with full track downloads and set them as ringback tone.
The app (available on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry) can share to Facebook, Twitter, Email, SMS and copy to share the URL, so users can spread the word on the best tracks and artists.
Mziiki also has a dedication feature that allows users to dedicate a track to someone via their mobile number or email address. These features allow for an artist’s work to reach new ears, across Africa and the globe.
It is the space where African artists launch their careers alongside names like Rose Muhando, Jazzman Olofin and Ukoo Flani. Recent additions to the streaming catalogue include hip-hop star Nonini from Kenya, afrobeat and reggae musician Chameleone from Uganda and Bongo Flava star Diamond Platnumz from Tanzania.