BEIJING, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- With its strong presence on the African continent, Chinese media company StarTimes Group has contributed greatly to the promotion of cultural exchanges between China and Africa.
Founded in 1988, the China-based StarTimes places its core business in large-scale broadcast and television system integration, network operation and digital TV technology research and development. With a global vision, it began to expand its business to Africa in 2002.
To date, StarTimes has established subsidiaries in more than 30 African countries, including Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, Guinea, DRC, South Africa, etc.
Helping African countries to realize digital migration is one of the key aims of StarTimes. After years of development, it has turned out to be one of the fastest-growing and the most influential digital TV operators in Africa.
With its own translation & dubbing center established in 2011, the company has the ability to introduce Chinese mainstream channels and popular Chinese TV shows to a market where, only a decade ago, most people were limited to two state-controlled TV channels. Chinese TV series, such as "Doudou and Her Mothers-in-law", translated and spread by StarTimes, have been loved by the local people, which enhanced the friendship between China and Africa.
It is also worth noting that during the 2018 FIFA World Cup, StarTimes revolutionized the way of match livestreaming via a smart phone App in its Kenyan market. The App allows anyone with a smart phone to watch a match while traveling at an affordable price. With as little as 0.3 dollars, one can watch all matches in one day and for 2.4 dollars, one can watch all the matches for one month, according to Ann Njeri, the quality analyst and team leader of Customer Care Department at StarTimes in Kenya.
Kenyan football lovers said that the StarTimes App has been a game changer during this World Cup season. "I have the latest version of StarTimes App and it has served me well and more importantly, I have been able to livestream World Cup matches without any hitch," remarked Innocent Bahati, a Nairobi-based entrepreneur.
Joseph Ayal, a college student said the StarTimes App has enabled him to watch the repeat matches since the live ones are usually played when he is attending a lecture. "As a student, I am in class most of the time and find it convenient to watch the repeat world Cup matches via the StarTimes App," said Ayal.
As the authorized enterprise to implement the “Access to Satellite TV for 10,000 African Villages” project put forward on the Johannesburg Summit of Forum for China-Africa Cooperation in 2015, StarTimes has been working relentlessly. It is predicted that the project will be realized by the end of this year, which will hopefully further promote the cultural exchanges between China and Africa. (Edited by Li Wenxin, Zhang Yuan, liwenxin@xinhua.org)
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