Anghami ( ar, أنغامي, anɣāmī) is the first legal
music streaming platform and digital distribution company in the
Arab world
The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
. It launched in November 2011 in Lebanon,
providing unlimited Arabic and international music to stream and download for offline mode. It is designed for the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
and
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
to provide the largest music catalog of licensed content from the major Arabic labels such as
Melody
A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...
,
Mazzika,
Platinum Records
Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...
and many other
independent labels, in addition to
international majors labels such as
Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
,
Universal
Universal is the adjective for universe.
Universal may also refer to:
Companies
* NBCUniversal, a media and entertainment company
** Universal Animation Studios, an American Animation studio, and a subsidiary of NBCUniversal
** Universal TV, a ...
and
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and t ...
. Anghami is one of the largest digital music ventures in the Middle East, seed funded by MEVP.
History
The goal of Anghami was to reduce
music piracy
Music piracy is the copying and distributing of recordings of a piece of music for which the rights owners (composer, recording artist, or copyright-holding record company) did not give consent. In the contemporary legal environment, it is a form ...
in the Arab world. The service was meant to serve as an alternative to piracy.
Anghami was founded by Eddy Maroun, and Elie Habib in Lebanon,
launched initially as a mobile only app with the slogan "The idea is that everywhere you go, you’ll find your music". One of Anghami's app features is
Dolby
Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (often shortened to Dolby Labs and known simply as Dolby) is an American company specializing in audio noise reduction, audio encoding/compression, spatial audio, and HDR imaging. Dolby licenses its technologies to ...
Pulse encoding, which reduces the file size of streamed music for faster and reliable online streaming when the internet
bandwidth
Bandwidth commonly refers to:
* Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range
* Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
is fluctuating. Anghami has more than 35 telecom partners.
Shortly after the partnership between Anghami and
mobile operators in MENA has been agreed few months after launching, the service experienced rapid growth with 1 million registered users four months after the launch. However, the next million was reached in three months, mainly after partnering with the major media player MBC Group
Middle East Broadcasting Center
MBC Group ( ar, مجموعة إم بي سي), is a Saudi media conglomerate based in the Middle East and North Africa region. Launched in London in 1991, the company moved to its headquarters to Dubai in 2002 then moved to Riyadh in 2022.
MBC ...
that featured Anghami in one of its most successful TV shows ''
Arab Idol
''Arab Idol'' is an Arabic television show, based on the popular British show '' Pop Idol'' created by Simon Fuller's 19 Entertainment and developed by Fremantle Media and recorded in Beirut, Lebanon. The first season premiered on 9 December ...
''. In 2013, Anghami partnered with
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
.
![Availability of Anghami in the World](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Availability_of_Anghami_in_the_World.svg)
By 2017, Anghami reached 30 million listeners, with 75% of users being in the Arab region. In 2019, Anghami's founder revealed in an interview that Anghami has 21 million monthly active users and 1 million paying subscribers.
In March 2021, Anghami became the first Arabic technology company to list on New York’s Nasdaq through a
Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) merger with Vistas Media Acquisition Company and the company was valued at between $220 million and $230 million.
In August 2021, Anghami announced plans to launch a new hybrid entertainment venue named the Anghami Lab in multiple cities worldwide, including
Dubai
Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...
,
Riyadh
Riyadh (, ar, الرياض, 'ar-Riyāḍ, lit.: 'The Gardens' Najdi pronunciation: ), formerly known as Hajr al-Yamamah, is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyadh Province and the centre of the R ...
,
Jeddah
Jeddah ( ), also spelled Jedda, Jiddah or Jidda ( ; ar, , Jidda, ), is a city in the Hejaz region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the country's commercial center. Established in the 6th century BC as a fishing village, Jeddah's pro ...
,
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
,
Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
New York and
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
.
See also
*
List of on-demand streaming music services
References
External links
Official website
{{Music streaming services
Middle Eastern music
Music streaming services
North African music
2012 establishments in Lebanon
2012 software
Android (operating system) software
IOS software
Windows Phone software
Online music stores of Lebanon
Symbian software
Jukebox-style media players
Mass media companies established in 2012
Lebanese brands
Companies listed on the Nasdaq
Special-purpose acquisition companies