Zain launches iflix service across Middle East and Africa

Say Hello to Unlimited Entertainment: Zain launches iflix service across its markets

KUWAIT, BAHRAIN, IRAQ, JORDAN, SUDAN — Zain Group, the leading mobile telecom innovator in eight markets across the Middle East and Africa region (MENA), and iflix, the leading Streaming Video on Demand (SVoD) service for emerging markets announce the official launch of iflix’s world-class service across several of Zain’s markets. This follows the announcement earlier in the year whereby Zain and iflix formed a joint venture entity, ‘iflix Arabia’.

The service is now available to Zain customers in Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan and Sudan. The companies additionally plan to further extend service availability to other markets in the region where Zain operates, particularly Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.

From today, Zain customers will receive complimentary unlimited access to the iflix service, for varying periods according to each of its markets commercial offering.

With over 170 studio and distributor partnerships worldwide, iflix offers users a vast library of top Hollywood, regional Arabic, popular Turkish, Bollywood and other local TV shows and movies, including many first run exclusives and award winning programs. Once registered, Zain customers can enjoy an extensive range of thousands of TV shows, movies and more with Arabic and English subtitles. In addition to having over 2,000 episodes of children’s content, the service will additionally offer an extensive collection of highly acclaimed Arabic shows and movies with iflix planning to introduce exclusive Arabic content series soon.

Commenting on the launch, Zain Group CEO-Operations, Scott Gegenheimer said, “iflix is set to redefine how our customers enjoy online entertainment, with groundbreaking features and continuous platform innovation, wherever and whenever they want. This is a launch of another content-driven offering that we are very proud of with respect giving our customers compelling, and unique digital services to enrich their mobile experience. We will continue working on bringing more appealing content platforms in the future.”

iflix co-founder and Group CEO, Mark Britt said, “We are extremely excited to bring our service to the Middle East and North Africa region. We believe that we have found the ideal partner, with Zain to help communicate and deliver our value proposition to customers throughout the region, and meet the growing demand throughout MENA for a world class service like iflix. We look forward to making iflix’s extraordinary content and service available to Zain’s 46 million customers. This is a monumental beginning for what we believe will be a very important and successful partnership with Zain.”

Having first launched its service in May 2015, iflix quickly established its dominance in the Asian region, rolling out its world class service to 10 markets in less than two years, acquiring over five million members within this period. With Zain’s 46 million customers, the joint venture will benefit from and leverage the mobile operator’s established market leadership in conjunction with learnings iflix acquired in consolidating its dominance throughout Asia. Zain and iflix will work together in capitalizing on the MENA’s large youth population, rapidly growing internet and smartphone penetration, and huge appetite for digital content and entertainment.

iflix’s propriety compression and adaptive bit rate technology further ensures that users will have a great viewing experience, by enabling the service to stream smoothly even on low internet speeds. Each subscription allows users to access the service on up to five devices, including phones, laptops, tablets, and television sets, for viewing wherever, whenever. A special feature for iflix subscribers is that they can also download TV shows and movies onto their smartphones and tablets from iflix’s extensive catalogue for offline viewing.

The launch of iflix is another key step in the development of the Zain Digital Frontier and Innovation (ZDFI) business unit, which is charged with launching Zain into the digital space and the view to growing the company through new innovative business streams that contribute to Zain’s financial viability and market capitalization. ZDFI focuses on the areas of innovation; digital services; corporate venturing; and smart cities, with the aim of Zain becoming a regional innovation trendsetter.