Acquisition to increase news coverage and enhance user experience
Africa.com has completed its acquisition of iAfrica.com, South Africa’s oldest and most iconic news portal from South African media giant, Primedia (Pty) Ltd and telecoms powerhouse, MTN (Pty) Ltd. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
iAfrica was founded in the late 1990s, and remains one of South Africa’s most recognized brands as a highly credible news source, providing an unbiased, South African view on local and global current events. Africa.com Chairman and CEO, Teresa Clarke, will serve as Executive Editor of iAfrica, whose content will continue to include a wide array of coverage of local and international news, business, sport, and lifestyle content.
The acquisition builds on Africa.com’s strength in running the news site at www.africa.com, and the Africa.com Business Publishers Network, a group of nearly fifty business content publishers on the continent who have joined Africa.com to create a digital audience of over fifteen million influential business people.
“The acquisition of iAfrica creates a next generation South African media platform with a global reach,” says Clarke. “By acquiring iAfrica, we are able to combine editorial, technology, and marketing resources, bringing the benefits of more original content and better site performance to readers of both iAfrica and Africa.com.
Both Africa.com and iAfrica over-index on educated, affluent, and influential users in South Africa, the African continent and the world. Africa.com speaks to this audience through its tagline, “Stay smart about Africa.” Africa.com will soon bring iAfrica’s readers a purely South African version of its popular Africa Top10 News — carefully curated summaries of the most important news stories of the day and the week. “We are fusing a legendary African news portal with an innovative and dynamic management team under one umbrella,” says Laura Joseph, Africa.com’s Managing Director. “With combined resources, we will continue to make each site better and better.”
Africa.com has already started its re-branding of the iAfrica.com news portal. “Africa.com is known for its creative content in the form of slideshows, videos, and infographics, and we will bring these content forms to iAfrica,” says Debra Winter, Chief Operating Officer of Africa.com.
Internet services with the “@iafrica.com” email address will continue to be operated by MWEB, a division of Internet Solutions Digital (Pty) Ltd.
About Africa.com
Africa.com is a media holding company with an extensive array of platforms that reach a global audience interested in African content and community. Africa.com’s interests include a business publishers ad network, content syndication, the website at www.africa.com, email newsletters, various social media platforms, and internet domain names ending with the “.africa.com” extension.