Ringier extends its news, e-commerce to East Africa

Picture: plive.co.ke

Ringier Africa is one of the leading diversified digital media companies in Africa, operating digital publishing, classifieds and e-commerce platforms, as well as a digital marketing agency across Africa. Launched on the continent in 2011, it represents the most recent international expansion of the Swiss media enterprise Ringier, which established operations in emerging markets in Eastern Europe and Asia from 1989.

With headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, P Live will be a new independent, nonpartisan news and entertainment publisher for the region, partnering with leading local and international publishers to bring the East African region up-to-the-minute, 24/7 live content, from breaking local and internationally acclaimed news to varied entertainment programs.

Pulse/P Live has seen notable international expansion and in December 2016, Pulse announced the launch of the men and women’s health titles for West Africa in the fitness sector. In January 2017, it announced the launch of Business Insider for Sub Saharan Africa, bringing the internationally renowned business title to Sub Saharan Africa. Additionally, Pulse already brings its users news content in partnership with the New York Times and Agence France-Press as well as live sports results with Sportradar. Alongside Pulse’s in-house content production, the publisher acts as a platform of highly curated content.

Doing so on a local and regional level, Pulse/P Live has also closed on a content partnership with entertainment blog Ghafla, which completed a partnership with last year, to aggregate top East African entertainment content. Ghafla will be integral to the provision of local Kenyan and East African entertainment content to a wide audience on P Live.

E-commerce deals

As part of its pan-African expansion, Pulse/P Live also launched P Promos, focusing on providing merchants of all sizes, e-commerce or otherwise, even more affordable ways to advertise their goods and services to a wide-reaching audience of millions, online.

In Ghana and Kenya, Ringier Africa Digital Publishing’s (RADP) sister company, Ringier Africa Deals Group’s (RADG) discount ecommerce platforms Tisu and Rupu will merge with P Promos and will move beyond early-stage e-commerce to offer merchants new ways of reaching a large customer base, under the P Promos brand.

Tim Kollmann, MD of RADP, says, “Pulse is an independent and admired new media publisher in Nigeria and Ghana, run by local media leaders. With P Live, we are now proud to be expanding these values to Kenya and the wider East African region, relying on international and local partners we collaborate with, introducing this to a large audience in the region. The continued expansion of our publishing activities reflects the growing market for smart, insightful and quality journalism and content in Africa.”

RADG, Ringier Africa and Silvertree Internet Holdings’ e-commerce JV, will focus completely on Africa’s largest internet market, Nigeria and its internationally recognised and trusted brands DealDey (products and services); PromoHub (product and service promotions) and Lyf (product and services directory).

Going forward, the group will focus on the thriving African e-commerce market, bringing not only products but also service verticals to customers, online, through its brands. Already a leader in spa / beauty, ticketing, city services, restaurants and varied flash sales, RADG will invest substantially to build more functionality for merchants and customers alike in these areas.

Paul Cook, CEO of RADG and partner of Silvertree Internet Holdings, JV partner of RADG, says, “We are focusing on the Nigerian e-commerce market – investing in product and service expansion. We define deals as everything that brings good value to our customers and merchants and will not stop to expand until every Nigerian online can enjoy services from DealDey, PromoHub and Lyf, while discovering new merchants and experiences.”

For more information, go to Ringier.com.