Access-based subscriptions for streaming and download services is the future of music distribution in Africa and will solve the question of how to monetise the music industry, particularly if providers offer attractive prices making music content accessible to all, according to leading online music providers.

Speaking to ITWeb Africa, Davin Mole, chief executive officer (CEO) of Simfy Africa said consumers in Africa will not engage with pay-per-song models, and that access-based subscriptions - particularly for streaming services - "make much more sense" from the consumer stance.

"In broad terms it will be 'pay for access' (like Simfy Africa) and not 'pay to buy a track' as the economics of the former make much more sense for the customer. Why pay R8 a track when, for R60 a month, you can download hundreds / thousands of tracks a month for the same amount?" Mole said.

"Likewise why download a track if you can stream / auto-download it on the fly and have a smooth continuous experience with a huge variety of listening? Why would you want to have to pick specific tracks when you can roam around and find new ones?"

According to Spinlet's Bradley Shaw, subscriptions are the way forward for online music providers, however subscriptions must offer various pricing levels to ensure consumers are not deterred by excessive packages and costs.

"...small payment increments seem to be the best option at the moment. This has been seen in the growth of the CBT and RBT market where the purchase prices are low enough to not make paying for the content a grudge purchase," Shaw told ITWeb Africa.

"For this reason Spinlet feels that offering two day subscriptions is a way to reduce the end user retail price to something low enough that it becomes attainable for the Base of the Pyramid consumers. The company is also reviewing the pricing for downloads/purchases and these may change in the future."

One factor currently significantly impacting the online music market across Africa is the cost of communications - in particular the price of mobile data - both experts agree; with both saying the cost of data needs to be addressed by music providers through their offerings.

"[The cost of data] is certainly a factor as a large number of our users have limited budgets for internet data. Furthermore, unlike the situation in some regions, unlimited data plans are rare in Africa," Shaw said.

"This is one of the reasons that partnering with mobile operators is a core strategy for Spinlet, as it allows consumers to receive some form of data subsidy by the operator for the streaming of music through Spinlet."

According to Mole, while data costs are a problem, once consumers find a streaming offering they are happy with, customer retention is high given that consumers do not want to lose their access to music content.

"By offering the right trials and promotional options, we see a good uptake of people switching to paying for streaming and, as the cost of data comes down, we expect this trend to pick up further," Mole said.

"Also by working with local corporate partners, who will sponsor or fully fund the service for some of their clients, people get to try streaming 'risk free' and once they try it, they generally don't want to lose access later so they will switch to paying for it themselves. Every day we see people 'desperate' to pay because they don't want to be without their steamed music at the gym or for a party they are throwing and so on."