Safaricom Partners with Boomplay to Offer its Customers Affordable Music Streaming Bundles
Safaricom, a Kenyan leading Telecommunication Company has announced a new partnership with Boomplay, a Nigerian-head quartered music streaming platform to avail the service to its customers via affordable daily, weekly, and monthly bundles.
The partnership will offer Safaricom customers Boomplay subscription bundles at discounted rates coupled with free data, ranging from a daily bundle of KES 20 with 50MB, a weekly bundle of KES 120 with 300MB, and a monthly bundle of KES 299 with 1.5GB.
Speaking on the partnership, Peter Ndegwa, CEO of Safaricom PLC said “As a digital-first company, we want to avail affordable devices and data bundles and leverage our extensive network coverage to enable Kenyans to enjoy a digital lifestyle. Through this partnership, our customers can now enjoy their favorite music on Boomplay using bundles that provide value and convenience.”
While Martha Huro, Managing Director of Boomplay in East Africa, said “With over 85 million monthly active users, we are the leading music streaming service in Africa, and we are all about building the largest and most sustainable digital music ecosystem for artists and content providers on the continent. This partnership with Safaricom will give millions of Kenyans seamless access to entertainment anytime, anywhere.”
Through this partnership, Customers can now access the Boomplay bundles via the Safaricom App, safaricom.com, or USSD *544*6# under option 5 – Boomplay and pay via airtime or M-PESA. They will then receive an SMS confirming payment and start enjoying ad-free streaming and unlimited downloads of their favorite songs and podcasts via the Boomplay app.
About Boomplay
Transnet Music Limited’s Boomplay Music is a media streaming and download service. TECNO Mobile and Transsion Holdings introduced the service in Nigeria in 2015. Boomplay offers both a freemium and a subscription-based service; basic features are free with advertisements or limitations, while additional features, such as offline play and ad-free listening, are available through paid subscriptions. The service is currently available for Web users at www.boomplay.com, as well as Android and iOS users. Boomplay Music had 10 million installations on the Google Play App store as of August 3, 2018. It currently has over 70 million monthly users (MAU) and a catalog of over 85 million tracks and podcasts from both domestic and international sources.
In March 2016, the music streaming platform introduced its Premium Subscription, which included paid subscription services, ad-free listening, and downloads for offline play. Boomplay Music Version 3.0 was released in March 2017 and included a new logo, redesigned User Interface, the following feature, and the introduction of a new “Buzz” feature that allows users to access entertainment news without leaving the app.
It won the ‘Best African App’ Award at the AppsAfrica Innovation Awards in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2017, and announced a partnership with TuneCore on April 14, 2017. Boomplay Music announced a partnership with Universal Music Group on November 5, 2018, to distribute content from Universal’s music labels. The agreement provides its users with access to UMG’s extensive catalog of both local and global recording artists.
Expansions and more partnerships
The iOS version of the app was released in December 2018. It announced a licensing agreement with Warner Music Group in March 2019. Boomplay will be able to distribute Warner Music’s extensive catalog of over one million songs to its community of listeners in ten countries, including Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, under the terms of the partnership.
Boomplay completed a series in March 2019. Maison Capital led a $20 million funding round, which was followed by Seas Capital and other strategic investors. Boomplay announced in 2021 that it is collaborating with Croatian vendor Centili to develop innovative data and payment models. Customers can earn points that can be redeemed for data, participate in promotions and competitions to win data, and gift data to other users. This feature was initially launched in Nigeria, but it is expected to be expanded to the other countries in which Boomplay operates.
In October 2021, Billboard announced that data from Boomplay streams would be added to the data used in compiling the Billboard Hot 100, Billboard 200, and other Billboard data-driven charts.
The streaming platform signed a distribution agreement with Believe Digital distribution services in May 2019. It also announced licensing agreements with Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, and global indie rights agency Merlin in 2019.
Boomplay partnered with telecommunications company AirtelTigo in June 2022 to offer its users cheaper data to stream music through its app. Boomplay also announced its expansion into East Africa by opening a Kenyan office in August 2016. Its Tanzania office opened in April 2017. Local operations and offices are currently located in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Côte d’Ivoire, and Cameroon.