Mdundo and Vodacom Tanzania unveil music bundle

In its quarterly update, released in November, the music streaming platform said it was working on its first partnership with a telco. Vodacom claims it has more than 15 million mobile subscribers Tanzania, and the deal will see its users get access to Mdundo’s Premium service and exclusively curated playlists. Through the Mdundo Mixes bundle, the teleco’s subscribers will be offered a variety of music genres including salsa, rumba and bolingo. Mixes will be curated by Tanzanian DJs and artists like DJ Summer, DJ Bike, DJ YBL and DJ Feruuh.

“Mdundo has a very strong following in Tanzania and we’re therefore pleased to launch our first telco bundle in this market,” Mdundo head of telco Patrick Sambao said. “Vodacom has a clear and ambitious product team with a strong focus on delivering new and innovative solutions to the market aligned with the Mdundo vision.”

Vodacom head of value added services Nguvu Kamando said: “Instead of struggling and moving from one platform to another, we as a digital valuing company saw the importance of creating one bundle which will include all music genres, that’s why we also decided to partner with Mdundo.”

Established in 2013 and headquartered in Denmark, Mdundo is one of Tanzania’s leading music services. The platform is available to users globally, with a focus on African markets including Angola, Cameroon, DRC, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In February, the streaming service reached 7 million monthly active users (MAUs), up from 5 million in June last year. The company said it hoped to hit 9 million MAUs by June 2021 and 18 million by June 2022. Mdundo's catalogue boasts more than 1.7 million songs, and a combined 20 million downloads and streams per month. It also works directly with about 100 000 African artists. In 2017, it signed a deal with Warner Music Group.

The move makes Mdundo the latest streaming service on the continent to partner with a local telco. In February, US music streaming platform Audiomack partnered with MTN Nigeria to offer music to over 76 million subscribers at a zero data cost. At the time, Audiomack Africa head of business development and media partnerships Charlotte Bwana said that “high data costs are one of the barriers to music streaming [in Africa]”.