MTN And StarNews Mobile Partner To Support And Grow Local Creator Economy In Africa

MTN renews Group Framework Agreement with StarNews Mobile, to expand distribution of local African content faster and in more countries.

StarNews, to announce its agreement renewal with MTN, is another milestone in its efforts to be a driving force in the development of the creator economy in Africa by renewing its partnership agreement with Los Angeles-based media-tech company, StarNews Mobile.

The goal of this partnership is not only to create jobs and opportunities for talented and hard-working African creators but to boost the world’s already exploding passion for African music, art, fashion, etc, by supporting the creation, distribution, and monetization of great African digital content.

In the first three years of their partnership, MTN and StarNews Mobile have already successfully deployed the StarNews Mobile platform in 5 countries, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Congo, Nigeria, and South Africa. As today’s chosen platform for hundreds of local creators (celebrities, influencers, athletes, etc.), it has reached 3M+ users with millions of dollars paid thus far to local creators through the monetization of their content on the StarNews Mobile Platform.

As an example of this partnership, MTN and StarNews Mobile have launched new and innovative ways of monetizing trending events by launching event-dedicated channels on the StarNews Mobile platform and providing subscribers with exclusive behind-the-scenes content. This experiment was massively successful during the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) campaign, during which over 765,000 subscribers were acquired and highly-engaging content was produced.

To reach the mass market, a particular emphasis has been placed on hyper-local content, which includes content in local dialects (like Swahili, Yoruba, and Zulu) and the promotion of indigenous, sometimes tribal, content. A good example is our popular “Bamoun Life” Channel in Cameroon, which delivers content about the Sultan’s activities and cultural events from the Kingdom of Bamoun, home to some 2M people in Cameroun. Revenues generated from this channel contributed to the development of this ancient Kingdom.

“Three years ago, MTN took a chance on us with the goal of unleashing the potential of local African content creators and bringing value to their users. The StarNews Mobile team embraced the challenge and exceeded expectations. We are excited to be renewing our partnership agreement with MTN and we could not dream of a better partner than MTN to deploy our Pan-African vision of helping African creators earn a sustainable income from digital solutions, something all the other platforms are not doing.” Says Cameroon-born Guy Kamgaing, CEO of StarNews.

As MTN and StarNews Mobile enter their fourth year of partnership, they are focused on expanding in their current markets and increasing the average income earned by creators on the StarNews platform. StarNews Mobile will do so by expanding into new markets, notably, Ghana, Benin, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia, and encouraging cross-border content distribution and monetization through Ayoba and MTN MoMo.

StarNews Mobile is dedicated to welcoming the most exciting, innovative, and relevant creators on the StarNews Mobile platform, while MTN continues to promote and distribute to their over 200M users across 20 countries. A proven, powerful, and successful partnership.

About the Company: 

With a mission of reshaping the content creator economy of Africa, StarNews Mobile has partnered with the largest telecom companies to promote their innovative platform that provides exclusive video content directly to mobile users, as well as micro-billing through the users’ mobile wallet. The company is committed to unlocking the massive potential of Africa’s mobile video market to expand faster and in more countries.

For more information, click on the website, https://starnewsmobile.com/.