Kwese partners iflix as iflix raises $133m for expansion

iflix has been described as the Asian Netflix. Their target market is the emerging world and after conquering the Asias and North Africa the focus is now on sub-Saharan Africa. As of March 2017 there were over 5 million subscribers to the Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) service, which cost around $3 per month. With thousands of shows and movies, including African content, it is no wonder Kwese decided to partner.

The partnership which was announced by both companies is to ‘bring the very best in streaming entertainment services to sub-Saharan Africa.’ When the service launches users will get unlimited access to thousands of shows and movies, with first run exclusives thrown in to sweeten the deal.

Whatever your taste, iflix has you covered. There is Hollywood, Bollywood, Nollywood, local and regional content. If you have kids, fret not, there are over 2000 episodes of childrens’ content for the little ones to peruse. All this in addition to the aforementioned original content for the African market.

The reason you should be excited is that the service will soon be available in Zimbabwe to Econet subscribers. How soon is soon though? They did not say. If you cannot wait, visit the iflix site and start your one month free trial to get an idea of what the service offers. You do not even need to enter debit or credit card details to do that, What you find there right now is not what users will get when the service launches as iflix Africa.

This does not mean Kwese now has a licence to operate in Zimbabwe. The service will probably be available as mobile TV via the Kwese app. The satellite pay tv option is yet to be availed here and so you will still need data to access iflix Africa.

Kwese has leveraged the strength of its sister companies, Liquid Telecom and Econet Wireless to provide access to Africans through: pay tv, free to air and digital platforms. iflix meanwhile is available to over a billion people in 18 markets and counts Sky as an investor. A recent round of funding raised $133m and indicates investors’ optimism in the SVoD service. This partnership is exactly what the doctor ordered.