“Breaking news,” says the MTN Cameroon Twitter feed, continuing: “Canal+ is now available on MTN TV.” Yes, MTN Cameroon has partnered Canal+ to deploy a streaming platform. But how will this service benefit Cameroon’s leading network – and its users?
Groupe Canal+ is a French media and telecommunications conglomerate. It runs its own subscription TV channels in France, distributes third-party channels and services, and is a major source of finance for domestic film production. It also owns many subsidiaries and operates in a number of other countries.
Now MTN users in Cameroon will be able to watch live television channels and video-on-demand (VoD) content on their mobile phones and tablets thanks to a recently signed deal between MTN Cameroon and Canal+.
Through the partnership, Canal+ content, including films, series, documentaries and live TV channels, will be made available on the recently deployed MTN TV Cameroon platform, the app for which can be downloaded on the Google Play app store.
According to MTN Cameroon’s chief marketing officer, Riadh Mezi, the deal will permit the operator to offer to its six million smartphone users (MTN has a subscriber base of nearly 13 million) access to high-definition video entertainment content.
Users will not need a decoder. They will only need an appropriate mobile device and the app’s user-friendly interface, allowing them to choose the bundle that suits them (and, presumably, that is most affordable) and then can enjoy their programmes daily or weekly.
Is this approach a good way for mobile operators in sub-Saharan Africa to gain new customers and ensure customer loyalty? In fact there may be little choice for many of them in the matter.
As research group Dataxis points out, the paying OTT market is growing steadily in the region, and mobile is the best way to access it: mobile internet penetration far outstrips fibre and owning a smartphone is becoming more common.
Business models differ, of course. Operators may launch their own OTT platforms or partner streamers like Netflix or Showmax that have, like Canal+, a good catalogue of locally appealing content. Incidentally, MTN, a pan-African company, is well-positioned already; it has both OTT platforms and active partnerships across sub-Saharan Africa.
So the demand is there. And mobile as a viewing medium makes sense given the slow growth of fixed broadband. The main challenge is finding pricing models that are attractive to end users and profitable for operators and their partners – especially as the market becomes more competitive.
