Kwese Play, Kwese Sports and Kwese TV are subset brands of Econet media__ a company run by Econet group Africa, and with earlier temporary administration flips the 3 media subsets now cease to exist on the African continent. The closure of all 3 brands checks in as a result of Zimbabwe’s unending economic woes that have continuously affected Econet as a telecommunications and media provider in Africa.
Launched in 2015 to disrupt the African media space, Econet media group had expanded to over 12 markets on the local continent, not until Zimbabwe stopped using the US dollar as its default currency coupled with the South African Rand together with other foreign currencies.
According to Econet, the lack of foreign currency to clear up suppliers affected its market structure making its shutdown inevitable in selected regions. However, the company didn’t clarify whether it only shut down its Zimbabwean Wing or generally closed operations further to its stronghold zones.
In Uganda, Kwese TV operates with Kwese Free Sports, Kwese iFlix and Kwese digital decoders as its default market offers after it took over from the endangered WBS TV back in 2015.
Though Kwese Play hadn’t tasted the Pearl Of Africa soils yet, the shutdown of Econet media group means a slash of all Kwese products in more countries like Uganda as the company’s public notice stated.
Johannesburg – 5 August 2019 – Econet Group regrets to confirm that Econet Media Limited has ceased operations with effect from 5 August 2019. It is a difficult decision that we could not postpone. Over the last 4 years, we sought to disrupt Africa’s media landscape and enable Africa to tell its own stories using a variety of technologies including satellite broadcast, video streaming, and free-to-air TV.
The Econet Group invested heavily into Econet Media and supported the business over the period it operated without any third-party funding. Unfortunately, market conditions and content price inflation got in the way of us completing our mission.
We are particularly grateful to all our dedicated staff and contractors who have worked tirelessly to bring a great product to market and who until the last day believed in the Kwesè story. We are also grateful to our customers and our partners who believed in the Kwese vision and who worked with us as we tried to change how Africans consume and pay for media.
We deeply regret the impact that this decision has had on our staff, contractors, customers, regulators and content providers. We will engage with each of our valued stakeholders transparently and will seek to meet our obligations to each of them as provided under the law.
The Econet Group is entrepreneurial and believes in Africa and its potential. Our belief in “an inclusive connected future that leaves no African behind” remains undaunted.
We would like to emphasize and reiterate that the rest of the Econet Group businesses continue to operate normally as each of our companies are separate legal entities with their own management teams and boards.