According to Mary Meeker’s 2014 Internet Trends report and Ericsson Mobility Report 2014, there has been significant growth in mobile. Mobile data traffic globally has accelerated by 81%, with video being a strong driver.
Founder of free content distribution app Tuluntulu, Pierre van der Hoven, believes Africa will soon follow and his app “Tuluntulu” is in a unique position to ride the coming wave of mobile and video growth.
“Smartphone growth in Africa has been way beyond expectations,” says Van der Hoven. “But the exciting part is that this is only set to grow more… exponentially so. We are seeing a steady drop in the cost of smartphones, tablets and data costs fuelling this growth, and video streaming on mobile phones will soon become a part of the African status quo.
“The thing is Africa is on the wrong side of the digital divide, especially in terms of ‘last mile’ infrastructure. Most popular sites like YouTube and Vimeo are designed for the developed world. They do not operate well within our limited mobile bandwidth capacity in Africa,” he says.
Van der Hoven believes that with Tuluntulu’s unique streaming system, things are all set to change in Africa. Van der Hoven says the Tuluntulu offering will unlock video streaming as an industry in Africa. “No licenses or new transmitter networks are required, which opens up the industry to new players. The unique technology minimises data costs for the viewer when streaming video. The app is free to download, and free to watch except for data costs. When on WiFi, its 100% free to watch,” he says.
Tuluntulu currently offers 10 x 24/7 “TV” channels and will expand the compelling content offering that caters to a distinctly African audience. Being a free platform offering streaming services from a variety of channels including news networks like Al Jazeera and ANN7, the app is designed to attract a wide spectrum of African audiences.
“Our platform provides a single, simple point of entry for African content through an app that only needs to be downloaded once. While the perception is that consuming data for video is too expensive, ARTIST reduces this cost significantly, and offers a free alternative. This opens up a very wide audience considering the prevalence of mobile in Africa. These are exciting times, and I for one am happy to be on the front lines of the African tech renaissance,” says Van der Hoven.
