Anghami is not stopping any time soon with its conquering of the Middle Eastern music streaming market. In fact, it has just extended the competitive advantage it maintains over Spotify by announcing six new telecommunications partnerships in the Middle East and North Africa region.
During the first quarter of 2021, the company said it formed six such relationships. The partnerships are in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. In a region where digital payments have yet to gain traction, these relationships are critical for Anghami. The company has been able to simplify access to its services thanks to the 37 agreements it has signed during the last nine years. It has partnered with Virgin Mobile in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, Orange Tunisia, Maroc Telecom, and Djezzy in Algeria for the year 2021.
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“We’re excited to collaborate with our regional strategic partners to bring more users with access to Anghami Plus and the music and podcasts they love in offers that offer the best experience and value. Since our inception, partnering with mobile operators has been a key goal for us because it allows us to reach new audiences, benefit from the telecommunications partner’s extensive marketing reach, and provide our users with a convenient way to pay for or gain access to Anghami Plus through custom-made bundles for each market,” Choucri Khairallah, Vice President of Business Development of Anghami, said.
By the second quarter of 2021, Anghami hopes to go on IPO on Nasdaq through SPAC.
Anghami Is The Category King For Music Streaming Payments In The Middle East
The creators of Anghami believed in data, which must have aided them greatly. One of such helps included discovering and fixing one of the most excruciating pain points for customers — payments. Not everybody in North Africa has credit cards, said Habib; and so it was only reasonable for Anghami’s team to find a way to get around this.
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‘‘Let’s take an example,’’ he said. ‘‘Amazon bought Souq.com, which is a big eCommerce service based out of Dubai. Souq had 70% cash on delivery three years ago. Last year, they had 75% cash on delivery. The volume grew, but the percentage of cash on delivery grew even higher. The concept of cash on delivery, which is not available on Amazon UK, is available across the region [in the Middle East]. People are not used to paying by electronic payments.”
Today, the music streaming service partners with major telecommunications companies across the Middle East for its payment services through mobile money.
“As far as I know, Spotify has no coverage on any mobile network [in MENA] today. Also, we provide multiple pricing tiers on mobile that can go, with certain networks, down to $1/month. [Anghami works] on any browser, as many users in emergent markets have low-end devices,’’ he said.
Habib also said the company’s biggest revenue stream comes in from mobile operators.
Anghami partnerships Anghami partnerships
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
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