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iROKO’s New App Takes Nollywood Movies To Francophone Africa

iROKO’s New App Takes Nollywood Movies To Francophone Africa

Nigerian-based video-on-demand and internet TV startup, iROKO, has launched a new app that targets viewers in French-speaking African countries.

The iROKO+ app is a partnership with CANAL+ GROUP thatbroadcasts the largest catalogue of African content, including Nollywood films and TV series, African homemade series and shows and South-American TV Novelas, for francophone Africa.

The Android app, which aims to bring affordable, popular mobile TV content to Francophone countries, will be free until June 1 and will allow user to download movies and TV series as part of a subscription service.

” All content has been dubbed into French, much of it for the very first time,” iROKO said in an email statement  to AFKInsider.

There are over 250 million French-speaking people in 30 countries across Africa. The region is forecast have over 165 million smartphones by 2020.

CANAL+ GROUP and iROKO have previously worked together through content distribution deals for linear TV channels such as Nollywood TV, and are now consolidating their partnership to launch this standalone Android app.

“iROKO’s original approach, integrating popular content production and mobile SVoD perfectly matches our group’s entertainment vision in French-speaking Africa. This will also allow us to make more accessible the contents that we specifically produce and design for the African market,” Ventures Africa quoted CANAL+ Overseas President, Jacques du Puy, saying during a deal signing presser in December 2015.

Africa’s VOD market has been growing fast in recent years as mobile phone subscriptions boom on the continent. This lucrative market has attracted international companies including US-based Netflix that entered the continent this year in a global expansion strategy.