(By Jason 'Igwe' Njoku) - Man. This is a
little strange. Very little drama in 2017. We’re IROKO. There is always a
little drama lurking somewhere. Alas none this year. To be honest, I ended up
spending 5 months of 2017 in London so that pretty much took the wind out of
any dramatic things outside of introducing Nnenna, my daughter, into the world.
Being a parent is special. When I wasn’t one I used to move around the world fucking
fearless. Now, everyday, I’m just scared. Scared that they may fall ill (kids
at nursery are always ill), scared that I may let them down (apparently no one
told me there is no rule book to raising kids, you just hack it as you go
along) and scared that you can’t pay school fees (Holy ghost fire this will
never happen in Jesus’ name).
To be honest the most
dramatic thing that happened to IROKOtv over the last 12 months has actually
been the launch of ROK channels on DStv and SKY. On Tuesday, I was in
Johannesburg, and two young Nigerian men blocked me at the fuel station (I
drive myself). One of them recognised me and was trying to explain to the other
who I was. You know.
You know. The husband of the woman, you know, Nollywood actress, Mrs
Mary, who runs ROKTV.
See my life. Post wedding. It was a concerted multi-year campaign to migrate
people calling her Mary Remmy, to simply Mrs Njoku. Now I am the husband of the
woman who runs ROK. I guess I am just resigned to being the queen in this
relationship. In her shadow forever. It’s okay.
Africa is almost ready.
Above are the kiosks
located across Nairobi Kenya. Over the next few weeks we will increasingly go
live. The big strategy for IROKOtv has been the shift from focusing on the
international business (which is close to joining our profitable business units
in a matter of months) and finally the big development spend on the Africa
business. Today in subscriber terms, I am very confident that business has
grown beyond 50% share (last month it was 47%). To say that is remarkable, at
least to me, is an understatement. We are still very early but over the next
five years we expect Africa to represent 99% of our subscriber base and the
vast majority of our revenues. Thus we keep on investing (read losing money,
but at least less than 2016 sha) developing these markets.
Because I wasn’t in Lagos
for a big slug of time, and thus not overwhelmed by her petty demands, I was
actually able to think, based on our success across French Speaking Africa with
IROKO+, I caught the geographical expansion bug. Were we ready to enter new
markets? The organisation is still pretty immature. So, absolutely not. Would
it be a big distraction for the executive team, sure, but I could mitigate
that. Could we really afford it? Nope. Would it be fun? Most definitely. IROKO’s
#1 value is to Be Bold. So we adjusted to improve affordability (try matching ~$6/year — N2000/GHC25/Ksh600) and started expanding. Below was our plan…
This was super ambitious.
Perhaps a little too ambitious. Well. It does say be bold… anyway we created a bunch of corporate subsidiaries across
English Speaking Africa . Even though we haven’t officially launched in
Uganda or Zambia yet, we have already kicked off payment integration and some
greenfield market development exercises. Why didn’t we expand throughout
Nigeria, you know Ibadan, Abuja, PH et
al before attempting new markets, I hear some
say. Is this more Njoku hubris. Yes and obviously No
I have always believed in
city states. The concept that great economic wealth is concentrated in tier 1
cities, it’s evident globally. Across Africa, that distinction is increasingly
more extreme. Pay TV markets have shown the prevalence for this, so using PayTV
as the benchmark, we launched where we believed improved the odds of success.
Where consumers had:
- demonstrated
a propensity to pay for content (excl. SA~80% of GOtv’s 2.981m subscribers
sit in the above 5 countries)
- had a very
strong affinity for Nollywood content (we have the app downloads and
channels AR — audience reach data which clearly shows
this)
- Strong IROKO
branded channel reach and ratings among DStv and StarTimes audiences in
each market
- High use of
mobile money as payment option (Nigeria is a laggard in this regard.
Ghana, Uganda, Zambia and obviously Kenya are way out in front)
- and obviously
High Android adoption, High Density of consumer disposable income, High
Smartphone penetration and High Telco ARPU
Thus IROKOtv became the
most affordable PayTV offering in Africa. As we focus on building an educated
consumer base and extending our data-free download mantra, 2018 looks like it’s
going to be plenty o’drama all the way.
So that’s what 2018 is
all about. Continued market development, improving the unit economics across
Africa, supported by our increasingly awesome product, engineering, retail and
customer support teams.
We have had a singular
focus over the years. Survive. As we continue to reduce losses whilst growing revenue, we move
more and more closer into cash positivity territory. And even though IROKOtv is
<30% of IROKO’s revenues, she remains the growth driver for the future. We
100% expect the growth to be in the future. Below is a slide from an internal
document. It’s IROKOtv’s historical growth in revenue and subscribers. In 2018,
we begin our journey to proving SVOD in Africa is a real opportunity. But today
let’s eat cake jor.
As always. We end with
thanking God. We thank Mrs Njoku & Kids. We thank the executive team and
employees. We thank our investors. We continue to build this thing called
IROKOtv. May her days be long. Because she has somehow managed to survive this
long.
xx
Dec 1, 2017
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