Africa might be ready for a digital revolution but its tremendous growth of mobile internet-connected devices seems not to be enough for some major international services to become available in some of its countries. One of these is Spotify, the world’s leading audio streaming service. Although Spotify is in parts of Africa, it is yet to enter the Ugandan market. These kinds of delays are usually caused by licensing issues. But if you love streaming music on your phone, here are three alternatives you might want to consider.
Sauteez
Sauteez is a local Ugandan music streaming service launched last December offering its users a wide variety of local music. Its business model is similar to that of the leading music streaming apps – it’s free to sign up but downloading music and listening offline is a paid feature. Users can download individual songs or albums for a minimal fee, payable via Mobile Money, PayPal, and credit cards. Users can follow their favourite artists, get updates about their releases.
Sauteez is available for both Android and iOS-powered smartphones.
Soundcloud
Soundcloud might not have many of the most successful mainstream songs but it will provide its visitors with a continually growing collection of material by independent artists or dedicated professionals. And all of the materials are available free of charge.
Aside from hours upon hours of music, mixes, and such, Soundcloud has a large collection of audiobooks and podcasts, too, that you can listen to free over the internet.
Apple Music
Apple is a pretty selective company when it comes to the availability of its services abroad – it focuses most of its efforts on the US market – but its music streaming service seems to be one of the biggest exceptions. Thus, Apple Music is available for Ugandan users – and you don’t even have to own an iPhone to use it, as the Apple Music app is available on Android, too.
Apple Music is a paid service – the cheapest option it offers is a student subscription that costs $4.99 (around Shs18,500) a month. The individual subscription costs $9.99 (around Shs37,000) a month and offers access to over 45 million songs, put up to 100,000 of them in your library, and listen to them both online and offline. It may not be the cheapest service out there but it offers a viable alternative for those who want to listen to a vast library of music, along with original content and curated radios on the go.
This story is sponsored by PIATA
