Linkfire, an off-platform entertainment discovery platform has opened an office in Accra, Ghana, as part of its efforts to expand operations to sub-Saharan Africa.
Established in 2014 and headquartered in Denmark, Linkfire operates as a ‘software as a service’ (SaaS) marketing platform for the music and creative industries. The expansion is expected to grow Linkfire’s position on the continent, and the smart link company aims to increase African traffic from 3.5 million to 35 million hits per month within the next two years.
Maritt Araba Biney Jensen, who has been working at Linkfire for the past two years as financial manager, has been promoted to regional manager for Africa. Linkfire says its consumer connections in the region were until now driven by promoting Western music and not local artists or genres. Jensen’s new role forms part of the company’s plan to establish a strong business development and commercial team on the ground to increase adoption from local artists and labels.
“Ghana is a fast-growing entertainment market in itself and strategically close to other key markets like Nigeria,” Linkfire said. “Maritt has already been in Africa for the past three months and has recently hired two sales executives with plans to double the team before the new year. Within this period, over 10 new streaming services have already been added to Linkfire and dialogue with many potential partners and telcos have been initiated.”
Jensen said: “Already we’ve seen strong evidence for potential growth in consumer connections and most importantly click-throughs by working closely with strong regional record labels like Chocolate City and Mavin Records. This is just by a few hours of sharing how to optimise the use of Linkfire’s marketing platform and analysing the data together with the record labels for smarter marketing decisions. We’ve been really welcomed and see so much potential to optimise and increase usage further.”
Linkfire CEO Lars Ettrup said: “Within the first few months of Maritt working at Linkfire, it was very obvious that she had a talent that went way beyond the role we hired her for. She has always had a strong passion for business development, strategy and fast-growing markets like Africa, and would often get involved in processes related to these that she was not directly hired for. When discussing the opportunity of expanding commercial operations into Africa, we never hesitated to put Maritt in charge of this.”
According to Linkfire, Africa represents a strong growth opportunity for the company, with the cumulative annual growth rate of the music industry across the region expected to reach 10 to14% between 2021 and 2025. Sub-Saharan Africa is driven by a growing and younger population, increasingly improved internet infrastructure and solid mobile penetration, with the entertainment industries in countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Ghana estimated to grow at a 10% compound annual growth rate by 2025.
“African artists are not just popular regionally but are increasingly reaching a more global audience,” Linkfire says. “A strong trend we see for K-pop and Latin American artists as well, rising to prominence on the global charts. Streaming services are eyeing these opportunities and we’ve seen many regional services appear in the past years such as Boomplay, Audiomack, Gbedu and Mdundo but also growing interest and focus from the bigger players like Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube.”
Source: Music In Africa
