Anghami’s Arabic music accounts for 1% of catalogue and 60% streams

The statistic was revealed by the company’s co-founders Eddy Maroun and Elie Habib in an interview with CNN this week.

“We’re Arabs but we are influenced by the Western world, and this is reflected in our product,” Maroun said. “That’s why our product is really more relevant.”

The platform boasts about 73 million songs in their catalogue, yet those songs generate 60% of all of Anghami’s traffic,” Habib said. “We realise we need to grow that 1%.”

Anghami has also set out ambitions to move offline and explore other avenues such as live events and a recording studio in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

As part of this strategy, in July Anghami acquired Spotlight Events, a live event company, which will feature regular concerts for local artists. Its partnerships include a deal with Sony Music, which saw the launch of Vibe, a boutique record label expected to support independent Arabic music and empower artists.

In February, the company signed an exclusive partnership with Egyptian superstar Amr Diab, whose 1.2 billion streams make him the most popular artist on the platform.

“Artists can’t just make money out of music streaming,” said Habib. “They need to make money out of the real world also.”

The MENA streaming giant joins a wider trend among music streaming services, which aim to be a springboard for artists. Launched in Beirut in 2012, and now headquartered in Abu Dhabi, Anghami has swiftly grown to become known as the Spotify of the Middle East.

Anghami was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange earlier this year, becoming the first Arab tech company to do so. Following this, the platform posted 29% growth in revenue and 41% growth in monthly subscribers in the first half of 2022.

“When we started Anghami we never thought about IPOs, we never thought about millions of users using us every day,” Habib said. “IPO is never the end game – the end game is making something which you are proud of.”