Deezer, a France-based global music streaming service, was last week launched in Nigeria to offer unlimited access to its themed and artist-based radio channels in the West African country.
Deezer is expected to go head-to-head with the likes of iROKING and Spinlet, two of Nigeria’s leading music streaming services. Earlier this year, Deezer unveiled its music streaming service in Ivory Coast and Mauritius.
Although aiming to eat into iROKING and Spinlet’s market share in Nigeria, iROKING are not fazed as Jessica Hope, Global Communications Officer at iROKO Partners stated when speaking to HumanIPO “We have a lot more local content on iROKING.”
She continued “We are supporting local artists – Nigerians by Nigerians. We invest in the industry and we nurture the artists. That is a key unique selling proposition (USP) for us.”
Already having over 20 million songs on its catalogue, Nigerian users will be able to listen to music from the likes of 2Face and P-Square on the music streaming service, as they are available on their African music catalogue.
The announcement of its availability in Nigeria comes at the same time that it announced that the streaming service — also recently launched in South East Asia — received US$130 million in funding.
This funding is to form part of their plans designed to accelerate their global expansion and transform the way in which music fans across the world access and enjoy a catalogue of 20 million tracks, Deezer said in a statement.
Deezer has Facebook integration that allows its users to discover music through their friends. It also shows users what their friends are listening to and allows them to recommend music.
Deezer said it would be enhancing the user experience by having local in-country teams that curate up-to-date and relevant content for each country they have launched in, and by rapidly ingesting local labels’ catalogues. The service will also take part in live events and partnerships in the different territories and each country it is currently available.
Axel Dauchez, CEO at Deezer said: “This local approach is strengthened by exclusive partnerships with mobile operators in every key country, with 14 mobile telecommunications partners already in place and a further 6 to be announced during the year”.
The music service owned by France’s Orange network offers a 15-day free trial to new users who want to try out its premium services. This provides unlimited access to its catalogue in enhanced sound quality when using a PC.
“We want to take new music to musically isolated countries, breaking down the old music distribution networks. We’re confident that by getting more people to try the service – including those not yet aware of the subscription model – Deezer will become the new way to listen to music worldwide,” Dauchez concluded.
