Middle East and North Africa-focused streaming platform Anghami has published its preliminary Unaudited results for 2022.
The company reports that it ended 2022 with 1.52 million total paying subscribers, an increase of 21% compared to 2021.
It also reports to have seen 20% growth in music streams compared to 2021, with Arabic music representing 60% of the platform’s total streams.
Anghami says that it has 101 million registered users.
In terms of finances, according to Anghami’s preliminary results, the company generated total revenue of $48.1 million in 2022, reflecting an increase of 35.6% YoY.
Anghami says that this growth came “despite an unfavorable impact of foreign currency exchange rates”.
Anghami also says that a focus on “efficiency and profitability in the second half of 2022 resulted in a significant improvement in gross margin across all business segments”.
The company revealed in November that it was reducing its headcount by 22% as part of a “sustained focus on profitability”
“Given the impact of challenging macroeconomic conditions, we had to take some cost disciplinary measures to improve our bottom-line performance,” Eddy Maroun, CEO and co-founder of Anghami, said at the time.
Anghami says that it aims to achieve profitability in 2023.
Elsewhere in Anghami’s preliminary filing, it reveals that it has established 47 telco partnerships in MENA to “facilitate customer acquisition and subscription payment”.
The company also notes that it has deals in place with both Arabic and global music labels including Rotana Music, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and the Merlin Network.
Anghami also says that it is launching “new services” starting in May 2023. Commenting further on these services, Elie Habib, Chairman and co-founder of Anghami, said that the company plans “to launch new services that leverage both our unique user behavior knowledge and our deep technology credentials.“
Anghami says in its filing that it is “constantly increasing its content library by licensing and producing new and original content”.
In December Anghami claimed that it will soon become the first platform to host over 200,000 songs generated by Artificial Intelligence.
Anghami partnered with a generative music platform called Mubert, which says it allows users to create “unique soundtracks” for various uses such as social media, presentations or films using one million samples from over 4,000 musicians.
The partnership between the two companies was based around an in-app activation to create so-called “musical football cheers”. According to Mohammed Ogaily, VP Product at Anghami, the service had “generated over 170,000 songs, based on three sets of lyrics, three talents, and 2,000 tracks generated by AI”.
“Our ability to provide an exceptional user experience and to deliver the best music and entertainment content in the MENA region and beyond is reflected in our strong financial performance in 2022.“
Eddy Maroun, Anghami
Eddy Maroun, CEO and co-founder of Anghami, said: “Our ability to provide an exceptional user experience and to deliver the best music and entertainment content in the MENA region and beyond is reflected in our strong financial performance in 2022.“
“Our entire team is focused on improving efficiency as well as revenue generation.”
Elie Habib, Anghami
Elie Habib, Chairman and co-founder of Anghami, added: “The unaudited gross profit margin from paid subscriptions and ad-supported users improved by 13 percentage points in H2 2022 when compared to H1 2022.
“Our entire team is focused on improving efficiency as well as revenue generation. Also, starting in May 2023, we plan to launch new services that leverage both our unique user behavior knowledge and our deep technology credentials.“
Last month, it was reported by Billboard that Anghami is facing a copyright lawsuit over allegedly streaming unlicensed songs.
Music publishing company PopArabia and its partner Reservoir Media reportedly filed the lawsuit on December 22 at the Abu Dhabi Global Markets Court against Anghami Technologies and its parent, Nasdaq-listed Anghami.Music Business Worldwide
