Music Streaming Platform Mdundo Pays Out KES 60 Million to Rights Owners

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Martin Moeller Nielsen, CEO (right) and Co-founder with Njiru Njagi, Mdundo's Chief Operating Officer go through the company's first half Financial year ending 31st December 2022 at the Mdundo's headquarters

Music streaming service Mdundo has released its report for the first half of the financial year ending on 31st December 2022. The milestone is in line with the 2025 Strategy of reaching 50 million monthly active users. 

According to a report from the company, during the first half of the 2022 financial year ending in December, Mdundo saw revenue of over KES 115 million (6.4 million Danish kroner), a 161% increase from the previous year. The company paid out KES 60 million, or 50% of its revenue, to rights owners.

The online music platform reached 23.4 million unique monthly users, a 15% increase since June 2022. The growth was largely attributed to the use of smartphones, internet penetration, premium products, and partnerships with telecommunication companies.

Out of the monthly users, 3.5 million were from Kenya, a significant increase from the 2.7 million in December 2021.

More Numbers

Advertising revenue closed at KES 77 million in the first half of the financial year, an 89% increase from the previous year’s 2.3 million.

The majority of Mdundo’s advertising orders came from Kenya.

Subscriber revenue accounted for KES 40 million, or 33% of the total revenue for the period. This represented a six-fold increase from the previous year’s KES 6.4 million and a YoY growth of 508%.

Mdundo’s music catalog consisted of 487 thousand tracks uploaded by over 140 thousand African rights holders, a 32% increase from December 2021.

The company also offered 1.7 million songs from major music groups such as Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, and Believe Digital.

The fastest-growing licensing partners on Mdundo during the period included Slide Digital (Tanzania), Dapper and Mavin (Nigeria), Content Connect Africa (South Africa), and Saldid Records (Kenya).

The growth in the catalog was a result of both the new releases and marketing efforts by Mdundo. The top DJ mixes on the platform were from Kings Music Playlist, Black Market Records, Empawa Mixtapes, Mavins Playlist, and Tamasha Records.

 Mdundo expects the number of monthly active users to increase to approximately 25 million at the end of the financial year 2022-23. 

Subscription revenue is expected to account for 40% of the total revenue within a few years.