Kenyan-based music service start up, Mdundo has announced a partnership with Universal Music Group (UMG) to bring UMG’s music catalogue to Mdundo’s users across key African territories.
According to Mdundo, the licensing agreement will provide its users with access to the world’s most comprehensive music catalogue, supporting the company’s ambitions for rapid market growth across the continent and increasing UMG’s reach within the African market.
In a statement shared with TechCabal, Mdundo CEO, Martin Møller Nielsen, stated that the company is pleased to work with UMG within Africa towards its vision of providing Africa with an easy and legal solution to accessing music that fits the local consumers.
Nielsen further claimed that Mdundo grew from 5 million monthly users in June 2020 to 19–20 million monthly active users in June this year and an over 225% growth in revenue for the year ending June 2022.
CEO of Universal Music South Africa & Sub-Saharan Africa, Sipho Dlamini, said that UMG is excited for more fans across Africa to have greater access to some of the continent’s most exciting musical talent, as well as UMG’s extensive catalogue of international artists.
Mdundo is one of Africa’s leading music services, boasting over 17 monthly active users. Before the UMG partnership, the service, which pays over 50% of its income to artists, had 1.7 million international songs and 367,000 tracks uploaded by 122,000 African artists.
The agreement with UMG seems well-timed to allow the service to offer some strong competition to Nigeria-based music service Boomplay, which currently racks up an impressive 42 million monthly active users and a catalogue of over 5 million tracks.
