A By The Numbers Look Back At 2019
It has now been 3 years since we launched Mvesesani. Wowsers, time really does fly.
2019 went by so quickly that it really is hard to even know where to start from in offering insights into the last year. Additionally, we haven’t written one of these in so long that we don’t even know where to start because it feels like there is so much to talk about.
In the time that Mvesesani has been active we’ve seen traffic from 149 countries and 1593 cities around the world. It’s great to know that Zambian music garners interest in so many places globally.
Our data tells us that Zambian content is going to be consumed by Zambians first so when it comes down to it, the most traffic and actual sales are local. Local traffic and sales far outpace the numbers from anywhere outside of the country; 86% of all our revenue comes from Zambian consumers. This year we’ve sold music to people in 81 different cities some of which are represented in the word cloud below.
Showing Growth Potential
2019 was the year that we really started to really see the potential for digital sales of Zambian music turn into tangible results. We’ve seen a steady growth in awareness of Mvesesani over the years that we have been active and through a combination of popular releases; the availability of payments through MTN Mobile Money & enthusiastic consumers this year saw our revenue grow by 564%.
It looks like we have a lot to live up to next year 😅. We hope that finally getting Airtel Money & Zamtel Kwacha payments up and running helps in this regard. Also, we can’t do this without the support of both artists and music fans. Artists, please do bring us your music so that these music fans can do the thing 💯.
The Progress of Mobile Money Payments
Speaking of mobile money payments, e-commerce in Zambia is hard. It’s still an area of the economy that is by no means complete when it comes to infrastructure. Three years into this business, we still lack an all inclusive plug and play payments solution. Being a tech company, of course that doesn’t stop us, if it isn’t out there then we just have to build it ourselves 💪.
In that vein, we launched MTN Mobile Money payments last year in March of 2018, and after a couple of false starts have been able to see its use on Mvesesani grow steadily with customers from all over the country being able to take part in supporting Zambian Music through e-commerce.
We fully expect to see Mobile Money purchases begin to outpace card purchases in 2020 once we finally introduce the Airtel and Zamtel products as payments options.
Yes, we’ve heard your pleas for Airtel Money; it’s not that we haven’t thought to include it, it just takes long to get these things done sometimes.
2019’s Best Selling Artists
This was a great year for Zambian music and with our sales records being broken twice, in January K.R.Y.T.IC broke our sales record with the release of his second full length album “Art.Is.Tic”. Then in September Chef 187 broke the same record when his latest work “Bon Appetit” was released.
While we didn’t carry every Zambian release this year; we know that it would have been even more impressive with more artists on board. Any Zambian artists that want to join us on this journey can visit our Artist Information page to get started.
What we’ve learned over time is that there is a massive network effect caused by a popular artist with a large following releasing music into the Mvesesani Store. The addition of Chef 187’s Bon Appetit triggered an uptick in sales for many more artists both old and new.
Consumer Behaviour
Opera’s browser seems to have maintained its clear lead position as the preferred method of viewing the web in 2019 based on the traffic that we have seen during the year.
Mvesesani’s traffic comes from web searches, social media sites and a number of popular Zambian music blogs with the predominant browser of choice being Opera Mini. The obvious reason for this being Opera Mini’s well known reduction of data usage through web page compression. We can attest that Opera does not exaggerate the popularity of their browser platform.
With the increase in revenue this year also came the increase in user queries over issues related to downloading purchased music wherein it became painfully apparent that Zambian internet connectivity has a long way to go in terms of reliability. Dealing with complaints and even irate customers over a part of the service delivery chain that we don’t have control over can be quite frustrating, but taking into account the number of data conscious internet users we attracted, it makes sense that consumers would be aggravated at issues like incomplete downloads, particularly of albums that can balloon to a 170mb size in the case of longer projects (Thanks Chef …😅).
Still Leaving Money On The Table
In as much as we’ve improved our product, gained more reputation and following over time we still have a number of things that we would love to do better. Like any e-commerce project there will be some cash that one loses out on just because of how hard it is to convert every single user that visits.
In 2019 we noted more than ZMW3 million left in our cart by potential customers.
We’ve looked at the numbers, talked to consumers and derived conclusions as to what would increase our conversion and will be working our hardest to improve things in the new year.
That money left on the table is sorely needed by the artists we have in the Mvesesani Store. It would be the start of changing what we know as the Zambian music industry today. There is a very clear demand for the music, but based on the numbers, there are some artists that convert well and some that convert poorly. We need to work to increase conversion especially in the case of the artists that convert poorly but have a high level of interest.
Some of that responsibility is on us to include more payments options as we’ve highlighted elsewhere in this article, but some effort needs to be made by both artists and other players in the industry like the blogs that encourage free methods of obtaining music whilst they appear to be too shy to use the word “buy” with their audience.
Loyal Customers
Despite there being quite a few people with different views that have tried to tell both us and artists otherwise; we’ve seen some really great supporters of Zambian music since we started Mvesesani.
The fact that there are fans that keep coming back to support Zambian music really motivates us to keep doing what we’re doing. With the exception of our 3rd biggest supporter, the customers that have spent the most money on Mvesesani are all based in Zambia and are actually all in Lusaka. Our #1 music supporter has bought 18 albums over the last year and a half! #Legend.
Obligatory Social Media Plug
We’ve been steadily growing our presence on social media & have seen fruits from our labour this past year.
Where we needed to be on top of all conversations related to Mvesesani in the past; this year we started to see people online evangelising on our behalf.
Having a brand and product that people are not only enjoying interacting with but also willing to champion is a great feeling . We have to say though; having artists feel so good about having their music on our service is an even greater one.
You can find the best of Zambian music at mvesesani.com
Learn more about our company at about.mvesesani.com
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram.
See you in 2020 🎉
