Mdundo.com has committed to make a minimum of Sh 100 million payouts to rights holders in the current financial year.
The company which has turned 10 years provides musicians with a real-time dashboard to control and manage their catalog as well as withdraw earnings from the service.
Founded in 2012, the service has a strong focus on creating locally relevant solutions to benefit African musicians and the mass-market music consumers, management says.
It is one of Africa’s leading music services with 20.3 million monthly active users across Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria,Ghana,and South Africa.
It started with selling music on “scratch card vouchers” similar to airtime purchases from corner-shops but later became a free service funded by advertising sales.
The initial advertisers on the service were Airtel, Coca-Cola and Microsoft but today, the service works with multiple pan-African Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) brands and banks across the continent.
According Mdundo’s CEO Martin Nielsen, the platform currently has 4.9 million users in Nigeria, 3.7 million inSouth Africa, 2.8 million in Kenya and 2.4 million users in Tanzania.
More than 100,000 African musicians have created an account on Mdundo.com.
The accounts allow artists to manage and control their catalog and withdraw earned royalties.
Mdundo has made payouts of Sh100 million to African rights holders in the last 10 years.
Nielsen said: “Our digital music ecosystem has had a significant growth over the last 10 years.”
Music partnerships has provided Mdundo through MTN Nigeria, MTN Ghana, Vodacom Tanzania and MTN Airtel.
“We have also been able to partner with leading African record labels such as Mavin Records, Africori, emPawa,MAD, Slide Digital, Zeze Africa, Tamasha Records, CCA, Lynx, Entertainment, Black Market Records and KingsMusic," he said.
Mdundo also has licensing agreements with leading global record labels which include Warner MusicGroup, Universal Music and Believe Digital,” Nielsen added.
The company was in September 2020 listed on the Nasdaq First North stock exchange in Copenhagen and isaiming to get 50 million monthly active users, as well as a positive EBITDA (Earnings Before Taxes, Depreciationand Amortization) by 2025.
“The company’s focus is to deliver a locally relevant music service for the mass-market across Africa with ageographical focus on Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa,” said Nielsen.
