BOOOMPLAY EXPANDS UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP LICENSE

Africa’s music streaming giant, Boomplay extended its Universal Music license, which now covers 40 new African countries. With this move, the service is now available in 47 countries on the continent, including Seychelles, Eritrea, São Tomé and Príncipe, eSwatini, and Comoros. The renewed deal now provides Francophone (and other) African countries with Universal Music’s French music catalog.

According to Boomplay’s Director of Artist and Media Relations, “This expansion will afford us an opportunity to help open up more music to our users and opportunities for artists in the new regions”. She also believes the partnership “will further embed the blossoming relationship between both parties”

On the other side of the deal, Franck Kacou, Managing Director of Universal Music Group said: “We are excited for our artists and labels to be available now to music fans across these 25 French-speaking countries, but also to reach audiences across the rest of the continent.”

The streaming platform holds the largest catalogue of Local contents (with more than 50 million songs in their catalogue) in the music streaming space in Africa. They don’t see the likes of Apple Music, Spotify, and Deezer music as serious competitions.

This was gathered in a 2020 interview with Sorinola, where she stated “These streaming services are not so big in Africa right now and may not necessarily be considered ‘serious competition… However, we have noticed some moves recently with respect to content acquisition and marketing. Africa is termed the ‘last frontier of the global economy’ with a population of about 1.3 billion.

All UMG’s African Labels are carried as well in the deal; Def Jam Africa, Electromode, Independent Artistes, and those distributed by Ingrooves Music Group.