With African mobile penetration now at approximately 50 percent of the continent's population of one billion, regional mobile operator MTN has seen a huge opportunity for the delivery of local and other music to handsets via a digital content portal.The growing demand for digital content in Africa has pushed MTN to partner with Content Connect Africa, an aggregator and provider of on and off-portal content, in a bid to offer a wide selection of music to customers.Content Connect Africa has a substantial catalogue of African music content by artists in Nigeria, Cameroon, Kenya, South Africa and Ghana among other African countries. The music will be offered to customers via the mtnplay digital content portal.

Content Connect Africa also has rights to exclusive video content featuring a host of poplar African artists.
MTN has a presence in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East including Zambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Iran, Yemen and Afghanistan. Through its deal with Content Connect Africa, MTN will offer a wide selection of music content.
"African consumers, with an estimated spending power of $1.4 trillion by 2020, has become highly aspirational with a taste for world class goods and services over the last few years," said Christian de Faria, MTN senior vice president for Commercial and Innovation last week.
Faria said more and more people in Africa as in developed world are going online for entertainment content.
Economic conditions in Africa have continued improving, pushing forward the number of people owning and using mobile phones. In April this year, a Gartner research report said Africa will reach 56 percent mobile penetration. The report noted that although not every individual with a mobile phone will conduct transactions, each will have the ability to do so.
Although the greatest demand of mobile phones is in major cities, mobile phones solutions are also being deployed by operators to increase accessibility in rural and other disadvantaged areas in the region.