Chinese telecoms networking, equipment and services giant, Huawei has signed a co-operation deal with music vendors to accelerate the digitalisation of music in Africa.
This deal was struck recently at the Huawei Southern Africa Partner Summit held in Johannesburg. Some of the music vendors include Spice Music, Mtech, CCA and other local vendors
The Partner Summit which attracted over 40 Industry partners, was aimed at creating a sharing platform to promote digital collaboration in Africa. Partners from telecom operators, consultancy, service and content partners included Deloitte, Capasso and Siphumelele Zondi.
Wilson Feng, President of Huawei’s Carrier Business in Southern Africa Region, said at the summit that Huawei is willing to work hand-in-hand with Africa partners to create a better industry ecosystem.
“We will leverage our innovative technologies of digital services, and our global resources to improve African consumers’ digital experience, and accelerate African’s digital economy development,” Feng said.
He went to add that through the cooperation, Huawei’s digital business cloud will also help their partners in monetization, which means it’s a win-win solution for all parties in the ecosystem.
The cooperation with content providers means Huawei will have the copyrights of millions of latest music from the international and local vendors. This is Huawei’s first breakthrough into the global music space.
Huawei will then be able to provide the music to telecom operators in South Africa, like Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, etc, which offer music to their end users through their music apps.
The summit also witnessed Huawei’s efforts in leveraging its Digital inCloud, a software platform, to integrate content across music, video, gaming and other digital service genres.
In response, Siphumelele Zondi, senior producer and anchor of South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), said there would be a great need for local South African artists to venture into the digital space.
Often local content is on demand but not available on digital platforms, which then promotes piracy, he said.
“Africa is a mobile device intensive environment, and platforms such as Huawei’s Digital inCloud can aid the availability of local content to Africa,” said Zondi.
