The Sunday News
Judith Phiri and Melinda Ncube, Sunday News Reporters
MOBILE telecommunications company, NetOne has expanded its business by tapping into opportunities for online digital entertainment products to cater for their broad base network which constitutes about 71 percent of its customers.
In a media briefing in Bulawayo on Friday, NetOne acting head of public relations and marketing Mr Dennis Chagonda said the company launched an online digital entertainment platform called One World Album simultaneously with a new online channel called OneTv.
“NetOne has become a very youthful network with youths in the age range of 18 to 40 years constituting about 71 percent of the customers base.
“We are now make sure that the same people consume what they want and we are not shortchanging our customers but we are making sure that they get that which they pay their value for.
“We have launched the OneTV together with the One World Album platform where artistes will have an opportunity to share their content.
“So far, we have released one song from the album and many more are yet to come,” said Mr Chagonda.
He also noted that for the OneTV available on YouTube, the number of subscribers continue to rise and they are currently close to 100 subscribers after its launch last week.
Mr Chagonda said the game changing One World Album platform is a musical showcase of some of Zimbabwe’s top musical acts and they were to work with more musicians going forward.
He added: “Having recognised how youths are utilising social media platforms driven by data for e-learning which was necessitated by Covid-19 pandemic, we also developed cheaper data to assist them with their studies. To broaden our focus on social media our platform as an entertainment platform will promote arts in Zimbabwe for singers, poets and writers among others.”
Mr Chagonda said the digital platform was also accessible on social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram and the company was excepting a lot of people to subscribe so that they can get more content that suits them.
He said the release of all songs on the first album NeOne was working on releasing more to support more artistes in the country, at the same time making sure that their customers are entertained.
Mr Chagonda also said NetOne was looking forward to working with other online TV entertainment platforms in the future as their interests were the same and not conflicting.
Meanwhile, NetOne is also working on different projects with the latest ones being in Binga District.
“Recently a mobile network booster constructed by NetOne was commissioned by the Vice-President, Dr Constantino Chiwenga in Binga, a development expected to open up the district access to mobile network.
“We are also building classroom blocks at Bunsiwa Primary School there in Binga and in terms of figures we cannot conclusively project them now.
“However, once the project has been completed, we can then say we used so much,” said Mr Chagonda.
