iROKOtv Closes Down London Offices In A Move To Focus More On Africa; Launching Soon In Nairobi
iROKO Partners founded by Jason Njoku has called London its home ever since its inception back in December 2010. However, the firm’s management have decided it is time to focus more on Africa. iROKO has announced the closing down of its London-based offices in a move that will allow them to give more attention to Africa.
Jason Njoku, the CEO and Co-Founder of iROKO partners said in his blog post, that iROKOtv is embarking on a new move that will see it sink more claws into Johannesburg. It will also open a new office in Nairobi soon and give more focus on customer acquisitions and subscriber base growth on the African continent. This new move will lead to iROKO Partners having a base of operations in Nairobi, Lagos and Johannesburg.
“To truly prepare the company for an Africa focused future I decided to re-align the company itself. In spirit and in reality. I decided to close the London office. This wasn’t easy. I was born and bred in London. The parent company for iROKO is a UK entity… My mother and siblings are all in London. When I had my first son last summer, we spent the best part of 4 months in London. Some of our longest serving employees were based out of London.” Njoku said.
It seems Njoku was feeling overbalanced while on his regular official office tour to his Johannesburg, New York and London offices, thus he saw it fit to shift iROKOtv’s energy away from London to Africa. He said, “I can only really see Africa and specifically Nigeria as our big markets. I am trying to sign up 1M subscribers in the next 6 years. Ambitious, yes. Impossible? Not really. So why the hell are we overbalanced to a Western audience? The only reason we are large outside of Nigeria is because of terrible internet penetration on the continent. But that will change.”
Back in iROKO’s London office, their 12 employees are not been left out in the cold, so to speak. Each was given options; in line with due process. While some have relocated to Lagos to continue with their careers, some have decided to move on to start working on their own gigs. The relocation of iROKO to focus more on the African continent was not because of a lack of viewers in Europe, rather it was because of the need to give more focus on the African future as opposed to Europe. But you should take into account that Europe is iROKOtv’s biggest viewer block coming in second to North America.
The news of iROKO shutting down its London office comes just days after it had stopped its freemium, ad-supported streaming service to iROKOtv PLUS for all viewers. A subscription based service that had more than 10,000 hours of Nollywood movies excluding adverts and aired across 140 countries. Although iROKO has some competitors such as YouTube, Dobox, AfricaMagicGo and Afrinolly, it is still a heavy weight in the industry with a valuation of more than $50 million.
Perhaps as a show of its readiness to put more effort on the African market, iROKO has unveiled a new logo and it promises a brighter future to the viewers. On his blog , Njoku said, “We need to build the future. Not tomorrow. But today. So we did. We shouldn’t exist. But we do. And we thrive. Now it’s time to build a massive business by re-aligning today’s reality. iROKO has 5 core values. Our guiding principals to build what we hope to be a $100M generating business by 2020.”
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