Jason Njoku, Founder of iROKOtv has announced that from next month, the company will be discontinuing its web service in Africa from the month of July. He added that they will also be discontinuing streaming service on the continent.
He said that from July, iROKOtv users in Africa will be able to discover and download contents for offline viewing. He mentioned that the major reason why they are taking this decision is the current level of the continent’s 3G infrastructure.
“In Africa, we will essentially retire the .com. The several thousand existing African subscribers will have continued access to the website. New users will be unable to see the desktop reality. Discovery and download to watch offline will be our new experience. 3G infrastructure really struggles to capture the customer experience,” Njoku said.
This development will however not affect iROKOtv customers outside Africa – even in Africa, only new users will be affected.
Njoku said: “Globally, where 85% of our revenues and subscribers lay, will remain untouched as streaming largely works just fine there. In Africa, we will essentially retire the .com. The several thousand existing African subscribers will have continued access to the website. New users will be unable to see the desktop reality.”
He argued that the internet TV company in Nigeria that would win if Nigerian internet is mobile would be the one that goes mobile.
“It needs to embrace and build for that apparently simple (yet incredibly complicated) reality – from content, to pricing, to access, to product development, to distribution, to everything. It all needs to be re-thought, imagined and the operating system required for this reality is Android. Pure and simple,” Njoku concluded.
