By Lukmon Oloyede
Co-founder and CEO of iROKOtv, one of the early video-on-demand movie platforms for Nigerian movies, Jason Chukwuma Njoku, has revealed that United States and United Kingdom represent 55% of its subscription base.
Commenting on the speculations that the expansion of California-based Netflix to Africa will lead to the death of iROKO, Njoku said “Netflix being in Nigeria has zero impact on iROKOtv and our vision for the future.”
“I use Netflix pretty much every week. My wife uses it pretty much every week. I have been a subscriber since 2012 and have never churned out. It’s amazing. I have blogged and generally been smitten by the company and their internet style market share grab. Where possible, I even try to emulate it. But Netflix irokotv isn’t. iROKOtv is iROKOtv.”
“So why people think we will suddenly die now they are in Nigeria is totally beyond me. I remember when Deezer came to Nigeria (and Africa). I have been a subscriber there for almost three years. I use it, without fail, daily. But when they released their IPO documents, Africa wasn’t even mentioned. It represented nothing. And that’s 3mb mp3 files. Not 300mb movie files which require a continuous connection for streaming. But Netflix is in Africa!” Njoku posted on his blog.
He stated that iROKO recorded 313 million streaming video views across YouTube channels in 2015 while 185 million of that was largely from second tier Nollywood content. “What percentage was Nigeria? 6%. And it’s free. YouTube is free-to-air Internet. Nigeria has consistently seen around 50% less engagement in Africa than comparable markets in Western Europe. Today streaming is just difficult. I have no doubt it will get better. But it’s not today”, the British-born Nigerian entrepreneur stated.
