Boomplay
Africa-focused streaming and download platform launched in Nigeria in 2015, owned by the Chinese joint venture Transsnet Music.
- Based in
- Lagos, Nigeria
- Founded
- 2015
- Website
- boomplay.com
Boomplay is a music and video streaming and download service launched in Nigeria in 2015 and built for African listening conditions, with offline downloads and low data use at the centre of the product. It is developed and owned by Transsnet Music Limited and its user base is concentrated in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania.
Transsnet Music is a joint venture between two Chinese companies: Transsion Holdings, the handset maker whose Tecno, Itel and Infinix brands lead African smartphone sales, and the internet company NetEase. Preinstallation on Transsion handsets is how the service reached scale. It raised a 20 million dollar Series A in 2019.
Boomplay licensed all three majors in quick succession, taking Universal Music Group in 2018 and Warner Music and Sony Music in 2019, which made it the first African platform at its scale to operate on fully licensed major-label catalogue. Its ownership is a useful corrective to a common assumption: the largest streaming service in African music is not African-owned.
