First, Nigerian entrepreneur Chike Maduegbuna built Nigeria’s largest football-based social networking website — FansConnectOnline.

Then he developed a mobile app called Afrinolly that gives fans of African content access to movies, trailers, short films and music videos produced in the African movie markets, especially Nollywood.

His digital marketing, social media and mobile app development company has done work for MTN, Cadbury, FrieslandCampina, WAMCO and Samsung.

 

Afrinolly is free, available worldwide, and has been downloaded more than 4 million times. It’s used in several African countries, Europe, America and the Middle East.

“We have remained at the forefront of maximising technology and mobile options for distributing African content,” Maduegbuna said in an interview with HowWeMadeItInAfrica.

From HowWeMadeItInAfrica. Story by Dinfin Mulupi.

Tell us about the economic potential of Nollywood. Has it been fully utilised digitally?

Maduegbuna: Nollywood has huge economic potential. Nigeria alone has over 130 million active mobile phone subscribers and over 15 percent of them can spend as much as $10 monthly to view Nollywood movies on their smart phones and tablets. And there are double this number viewing Nollywood movies elsewhere in Africa, not to mention potential viewers in the diaspora.

In my opinion this potential has not been fully utilised because of inefficient content distribution systems which continue to erode profitability and discourage reinvestment in the industry. The limited number of cinemas and lack of effective piracy-free distribution systems have been the limiting factors. This is why we have gone mobile first at Afrinolly and are working with telecommunication companies across Africa to get content to users in a way that will benefit all parties, most especially the film makers.

What are your plans for your company and Afrinolly?

We are focusing more now on expanding the technological possibilities of Afrinolly. We just moved into Afrinolly Space, a creative hub where film practitioners can learn, collaborate and create.

It was opened for the provision of creative platforms and economic opportunities for established and emerging film makers, mobile technology developers, innovative voices, animators, private screenings, industry trainings and events.

We want to contribute technological solutions to the development of quality film/video content from Nigeria and the rest of Africa.

Our current project is a studio facility which we are setting up in Nigeria to facilitate the production of shows, TV series, music videos and lots more in a controlled environment. Within the next five years we want Afrinolly to be the largest database of African film practitioners in the world, and also a multi-million-dollar digital distribution company.

Read more at HowWeMadeItInAfrica.