Econet Media is making big moves, not only is it bringing the Kwese TV satellite television to homes across Africa, including Zimbabwe, albeit with its own legal challenges, but now it has partnered the biggest names in Video On Demand(VOD) services, Roku and Netflix to bring Kwese Play, a streaming service to Africa.
Let us break down this deal for you, Roku will provide Kwese Play branded Roku streaming boxes, like the one below, Netflix is one of the Applications(Apps) that will come pre-installed on the streaming box, Kwese Play is also an App, just like Netflix included on the streaming box.
Besides purchasing the streaming box, users will have to pay monthly subscriptions to be able to access Netflix and Kwese Play, not only that but users will be able to add more apps to their Kwese Play streaming box, some paid for and some for free. Customers in South Africa are getting the first 3 months of Netflix for free, not sure if this will apply for the rest of Africa.
Econet Media are targeting Fibre-To-The-Home(FTTH) users with their Kwese Play Streaming service because streaming services require very fast and stable internet connections like fibre optic connections, which abviously isn’t accessible to everyone.
Initially this product will only be available in South Africa, then to the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa as more stocks arrive.
The beauty of using the Kwese streaming service over more traditional ways of accessing Netflix and other services, is that they have brought convenience in terms of payments, customers will be able to pay for apps using their local currencies, instead of using International debit cards.
Kwese Play will obviously compete with ShowMax from Naspers, and in Zimbabwe they will also compete with TelOne’s upcoming VOD service. Interesting times indeed.
Are you getting one?
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