Increased partnerships pushes Mdundo’s ad revenue above USD250,000

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 24 – Kenyan-based online music platform, Mdundo has banked on increased partnerships with other sites to grow its revenue as it targets consumers on the lower end of the society who frequently download free music.

The Copenhagen Stock Exchange-listed firm which was started in 2012 and operates in 15 African countries has partnered with various online sites to offer its consumers 15 minutes premium downloadable mixes.

In an interview with Capital Business, Rachel Karanu, the head of brand partnership and direct sales in Africa noted that the platform recorded more than USD250,000 in advertising and revenue sales as of 2021, a growth which she attributed to such strategies.

“We have grown dramatically both in terms of users and revenue, what has helped us grow is that we have created increased awareness, strategic partnerships where we embed widgets that enable us to recruit new audiences from our partners’ sites,” she said.

“We have many more telcos in the pipeline, In Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania and we are continuously looking for more partners in the sector as we target to reach more audiences within our niche, offering them the best music and entertainment,” she added.

Mdundo monetizes the platform by placing 5-10 seconds ads embedded at the beginning of songs and available offline for engagements.
Its primary audiences are those earning below USD 250, the majority of whom data costs would be a privilege and not a basic need.

“Mdundo is offering a win-win for both our consumers and artists, we provide a legal platform for music and we also pay royalties to artists who allow us to place their music on our site,” she explained.

Besides, the site in 2020 introduced football podcasts and religious content as it seeks to maximize such content which is gaining more popularity in the continent.

Even with the presence of other global platforms like Boomplay, Spotify, and Apple Music, Karanu remained confident that the firm’s unique niche audience pits it at an advantage as it is able to reach a wider mass market.

Further, in a bid to entice musicians, Mdundo launched a data tool that tracks media habits, the preferred genres of music, and the demographics of listeners, this is aimed at providing musicians and record labels great insights when making music.

“We also have a data tool dubbed Mdundo for brands which tracks brand health for advertising partners,The tool aims to measure brand perfomance within various categories through the metrics awareness,consideration,favorability and purchase intent.This data is collected through daily audience surveys conducted on the platform.” Karanu explained.-

However, poor reception by brands is among the key challenges facing the site, Karanu argued noting that many advertisers are wary of tapping on the emerging channels as a form of advertising.

“The majority of the advertisers are not consumers of Mdundo and will never be, therefore convincing them to tap into the co-audience is not easy, people still rely on radio and Tv and many have failed to go for emerging channels like Mdundo,” she remarked.

As of 2022, Mdundo had 17 million monthly active users on the continent. In Kenya specifically, the unique users rose from 4 million in Q4 2021 to 5.7 million in Q1 2022.

In terms of Revenue, Kenya was the best performing followed by Tanzania and Nigeria while in terms of users Nigeria is leading followed by Kenya and Tanzania.

Kenya’s high revenue was attributed to increased consumer awareness & data usage while Nigeria increased consumer presence is linked to its large population.