#Africacom2015: Ericsson’s NuVu to raise adoption of Video-on-Demand across Africa

The proliferation of mobile devices has ushered in a world of possibilities for TV and Media consumption in Africa. Viewing habits have evolved beyond just watching TV in a living room.

The mobility offered by these devices means that people are not restricted by time or place when it comes to entertainment, in fact in Kenya alone, TV ownership stands at 92% while ownership of smartphones stands at 82%. Among Kenyans who watch TV and video online only 40% of total time is spent watching video content on TV screens with the remaing 60% watching videos on devices. This is according Ericsson Consumer Lab research.

With VoD gaining popularity across Africa Ericsson at the 2015 has introduced an end to end Zsubscription Video on Demand content service called NuVu. With the new product in the market in the market, NuVu is set to compete for the VoD space with NetFlix, vudu among others.

The service will be be marketed in close collaboration with service providers and subscribers will have access to over 3,000 local and international TV and Film titles for as little as USD5 monthly. Subscribers will also be able to download content directly to their smartphones or tablets at no additional cost during off peak network times and access the content offline for up to 30 days after downloading.

Speaking to CIO East Africa at AfricaCom 2015, Pierre Cloete, Ericsson RegionSub Saharan Africa Engagement practice Head of TV and Media said that NuVu is set to launch officially in Q1 2016 in Nigeria first in partnership with Airtel Nigeria to Airtel’s over 30million subscribers.

“We currently leave in a world where people own more phones than toothbrushes, and therefore need to make use of the smartphone platform. We chose to start with Nigeria for piloting after research where we found there was more mobile penetration but after the launch we plan to spread across Africa.NuVu’s content offering is expected to grow significantly in coming years and will spann a wide variety of genres including Hollywood and Nollywood movies, TV series, kids, music, gospel and edutainment.

The platform which has been developed by Ericson will be fully intergrated into the operators customer relationship management and payment systems .

A core feature of the service is the inbuilt ability to distribute content to consumers during off peak periods as this help minimize data costs for both the operator and consumer addressing the cost challenge that has so far been an obstacle to VoD uptake in Africa.

The service will launch initially as an Android app providing subscribers with a personalized User Interface, bookmarking and personal recommendations with time though Mr. Cloete said that Ericson will continue with the roll out of the service on other OS platforms.
Airtel Nigeria Chief Commercial Officer, Ahmed Mokheles said thet they were delighted to be part of the project as this helps reinforce
Airtel’s commitment to creating real value for all stakeholders in line with enriching lives and empowering people.

The NuVu Brand identity was created by creative agency Red Bee, which is part of Ericsson. Red Bee has created identities for a number of leading broadcasters around the world including BBC, DreamWorks, UKTV, NBCUniversal, RTE, OBC Egypt, TV2 Norway and many more.

Meanwhile, Ericson has also launched AHUB at AfricaCom to help scale up the tech start-up community across Africa. In partnership with Africa’s leading incubators, accelerators, and innovation hubs, the Ericsson AHUB will showcase talent, facilitate partnerships and encourage investment and innovation, in a sector which has an abundance of ICT tech skills, but little industry support.