Mobile Entertainment

EVERY industry report says the same thing: the real growth in mobile belongs to the developing world. And where is this promised land? It’s in the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China. But what of Africa, the last great unexplored continent (unless you include Antarctica)?

Well, Africa is often unfairly overlooked. For example, speak to any publisher with a global remit and they will tell you about the extraordinarily progressive outlook of Vodacom in South Africa. But South Africa has always been something of an exception – the industrial powerhouse of the continent. How interesting, and encouraging, then to hear that there’s plenty going on in the heart of Africa – in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and elsewhere.

The progress of the sub-Saharan content revolution was made clear when its biggest provider, Nigeria-based Mtech, announced it would bring mobile English Premier League football highlights to Africa (excluding South Africa) for the first time. The offering will provide near-live coverage of all the 380 Premiership matches in the forthcoming season, individual match and weekend ‘round-up’ highlight packages, as well as SMS competitions and other types of content.

At almost the same time another content provider, iO global, signed a multi-year contract to supply full-track downloads from the major labels to MTN Nigeria’s Loaded content portal.
The news that rich media is available in the heart of Africa might have surprised some.

But Nigeria’s mobile subscriber base hit 30 million in 2006, up from 18.6 million at the end of 2005. The country contributed around 24 per cent of the African continent’s subscriber growth last year and is easily the biggest territory after South Africa. Chika Nwobi, MD of Mtech, says: “What you have to remember is that Nigeria is a huge country and that 30 per cent of its subscribers have multimedia-enabled handsets. That’s a decent base to work from.”

Mtech has cultivated the Nigerian market since it launched as the exclusive content partner for MTN in 2001. It has since launched off-portal services under the Vibedownloads brand.
Last year it opened offices in Kenya, Uganda, Ivory Coast and Ghana. In the new year, it plans to expand its services into Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

Predictably in a developing market, the majority of content sales are of SMS-based content such as jokes, daily horoscopes, ‘naija proverbs’, celebrity gossip, and so on.
Mtech now sells around one million ringtones a month, most of which derive from local artists such as 2 face and P-square.

The majority of downloads come from the off- portal market, with Mtech sharing revenue with ad channels such as TV rather than paying for ads. Where content is sold through operators, content providers such as Mtech have to wade through the inconsistency of revenue shares. According to Nwobi, they can be anything from 25 per cent to 70 per cent.

In order to build on the growing appetite for content in Nigeria and its environs, Mtech has formed WASPAN (the Wireless Applications Service Provider Association for Nigeria). It believes a collective entity is needed to educate both public and industry – and develop a code of conduct. Nwobi says:

“We’ve been in business since 2001 and we’ve seen a lot of progress made in mobile content. But there’s still a long way to go in terms of making consumers aware of what’s out there and how to get it. I think an industry body could help.”