The OTT provider Molotov has started to expand beyond its home market France, initially to seven countries on the African continent.
In a statement, it says it launched in Ivory Coast three weeks ago and is already aggregating tens of thousands of paying subscribers. Senegal will follow this month, Cameroon in February, Burkina Faso in March, Tunisia in April, and Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo, before a global rollout in the rest of French-speaking Africa countries in the course of the semester.
Molotov adds that elsewhere, especially in Europe, South America and Asia, discussions are underway with local partners to launch regional versions of Molotov. The objective is to rapidly deploy the platform and the brand around the world, primarily in EMEA.
Molotov says that for Africa, which is mainly equipped with smartphones and tablets, it has optimised its applications to take into account regional specificities (low bandrates, unstable connections, low-performance terminals). The monetisation of paid offers relies on payment solutions provided by Digital Virgo and in particular its no credit card needed, per day payment system, provided directly by local mobile operators. Digital Virgo, a global provider of monetisation solutions operating in more than 40 countries with 120 telco partners, brings its expertise in African markets and local marketing to this partnership, thanks to its local branches and 130 employees on the continent.
Molotov’s initial offer in Africa consists of 15 local linear channels, catch-up and on-demand content. However, agreements with regional publishers have been reached in order to increase this to 30 channels by this spring.
It notes that Mango, the free ad supported AVOD service launched by Molotov in France last November, will enrich these services with hundreds of films, documentaries, TV shows and kid’s content.
Commenting on the development, JeanDavid Blanc, founder and CEO of Molotov, said: “The international launch of Molotov represents an exciting new milestone expanding our platform and brand throughout the world.
“Our mission is simple: to create the easiest way for viewers to find the content they love through an intuitive service and platform. Molotov not only helps viewers discover new content, but also provides publishers, channels and SVOD services the ability to be easily discovered and more frequently used”.
François le Pichon, in charge of Molotov Solutions and international development, added: “Molotov’s ability to attract international partners is a great recognition for our brand and our French team’s capacity to grow one of the most acclaimed OTT platforms”.
Vincent Taradel, marketing director of Digital Virgo, said: “The partnership with Molotov allows us to deploy a service with very high added value on the African market. Cloud TV offers growth potential to all players in the content ecosystem, from producer to publisher via telecom operators. But the key element of success is, without a doubt, adaptation to local specificities. This is where we intervene by integrating our payment platform, our ability to integrate local content, adapt technology and launch effective marketing campaigns”.
