Opera and Mdundo, an African music sharing platform have entered into a new partnership to provide free downloadable music in nine African countries.
Under this partnership, Opera Mini users can now, for free, listen to and download their favourite songs from the most recognized artists in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The users can start listening to their favourite music with Mdundo as soon as they open the browser, with Mdundo displaying the 100 most popular songs in the country according to the geographical location of the user. This lets users switch between music and news faster and easier.
“Mdundo has changed the way people listen to music on their smartphones,” said Michael Gray, Product Director of Opera Mini Africa. “Now with Mdundo support in Opera Mini, music lovers can access a catalog that includes the best local artists, the most popular songs in their country, and the fastest-growing independent local artist platform.”
Through this partnership, Opera seeks to expand the functionalities of Opera Mini and bring African music fans closer to their favourite songs.
Supporting local African artists
Mdundo became one of the leading streaming music services in Africa after its release in Kenya in 2013. The music platform has one of the largest catalogs of independent African artists, who can easily upload their songs to Mdundo’s platform, manage their catalog and commercialize their music themselves. Additionally, they become part of the fastest growing online music catalog of independent artists in Africa.
“We love when African artists create new songs or produce new albums, and at Mdundo we are taking the side of the artists,” said Martin Nielsen, CEO of Mdudno. “At Mdundo we enable artists to keep track of their fans and we split the revenue generated from the site fairly with the artists.”
“With the inclusion of Mdundo’s music catalog in Opera Mini, African artists will also increase their chances of being discovered among the massive Opera Mini user base in Africa,” continued Martin Nielsen, CEO Mdundo. “This will bring them more streams, more downloads, and the opportunity to get new fans”.
Opera Mini is a popular and fast lightweight browser used by more than 100 million people around the world. Its success builds upon its great ability to speed up browsing while also saving up to 90% of data when browsing with its unique compression feature enabled.
With Opera Mini and Mdundo, users can decide between streaming music or download their favourite songs. Thanks to the hybrid advertising model of Mdundo, users can download their favourite songs for free. Those who choose to download music through Opera Mini, will also benefit from the file-sharing feature capabilities of the browser, as they will be able to share music at no data cost.
“The Opera Mini browser is among the most popular browsers in Africa,” said Martin Nielsen, CEO Mdundo. “Through this partnership, we are expanding the reach of our popular music service to make it even easier to use.”
Finally, Opera Mini users who choose to listen to their favourite music through Mdundo’s music catalog, can be sure that they will be supporting their favourite artists. This means that songwriters, recording artists, producers, and publishers, will be able to continue working and producing the music that people love the most.
