Universal Music has partnered with Samsung to launch Kleek, a mobile music streaming service in Africa. This was announced yesterday, at the Samsung Africa Forum in Cape Town, South Africa. The Kleek is initially being rolled out in five African countries, including South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, and Angola.
Kleek will be accessible across all African mobile networks and will come preinstalled on a range of Samsung smart phone devices, which will be made available to purchase throughout the continent within the next few months. At present, the service is only accessible via Google Play and will debut on the Samsung Play Store next week, according to Universal.
Keeling continued: “What we have recognized for some time is that [Africa] needs a service where the whole industry is behind it and that gives consumers what they want… You can’t simply take an international service and plonk it on Africa and expect it to be successful. The idea of the Kleek [as a] brand, a service, is that it will provide the kind of unique, experience-focused recommendations on artists that are relevant to the Nigerian consumers, the Ghana consumer, the Kenyan consumer, as well as the South African and Angolan consumer.”
The Kleek will need to compete with the likes of existing international mobile streaming services from Spotify and Deezer and local competitors like Spinlet, iROKING and TruSpot.
“One of the key objectives of the Kleek is to focus on local domestic artists and help break them through Africa and ideally around the world,” says Keeling. “Clearly we are going to be putting our full catalog behind it. But the demand at the moment in Africa is about local artists. [African consumers] love the big R&B, urban U.S. and international acts, but as well as having those artists available, the focus of the Kleek is on local artists and to get as many local labels signed up.”
“It’s very much an industry initiative,” he continued, stating that the service’s free to access price point would continue for an unspecified time to help facilitate growth. “We want the whole industry to be behind the Kleek and to help us to develop and encourage investment in Africa,” Keeling stated.
In a statement accompanying Kleek’s Cape Town launch – which was accompanied by a live performance by Eastern Cape singer-songwriter Zahara – Randall Abrahams, managing director, Universal Music South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, added: “With the Kleek, we are not just delivering the best local and international music, we are providing all of Africa with a unique and bespoke user experience. The service will also help us focus on developing future stars from across the continent.”
