German Spotify clone Simfy to expand into South Africa

Music streaming service Simfy is expanding its international presence, with a South African version of the offering set to launch later this month.

The German-based company boasts over 18-million songs in its library, including content from all four of the major record labels — Sony Music, Universal, EMI, and Warner. Alongside its label affiliation it also has partnerships with the Merlin Network and aggregators such as The Orchard, and Finetunes. Simfy also offers social networking, allowing users to share playlists and follow others to see what music they listen to.

When the service opens to the public in 13 days time, South African users will be able to try out the service for two weeks, before committing to a full account. At this stage however, it’s unclear how much a fully fledged account will set people back.

In Germany however, the pricing plan works similarly to Spotify. Five Euro gets you a desktop version with no advertising that works in your browser and from a desktop app, while 10 Euro buys you desktop and mobile (including an offline mode).

The offline mode, which allows you to buffer a load of songs onto your phone and play them offline, would be especially useful for South Africa, where internet speeds are still relatively slow and mobile data is on the pricey side.

As is the case with most of the biggest streaming services Simfy supports PC, MAC, iOS, BlackBerry and Android, with the mobile apps already available for download.

In addition to the massive international catalogue, a number of South African artists will be included in the South African iteration of Simfy.

The company, founded in 2010, started out in Germany before expanding to Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and now South Africa. It is the first international paid-for service to enter the country, with South Africans having to rely on free services such as GrooveShark, Boom.fm, and Nokia Mix Radio.