Samuel Sen (From Left), Procera Music Director, Mohammed Akif, Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

The Fiji Music App has been launched last night after two years in the making.

Procera Music Director, Mohammed Akif says recent times have been challenging for local artists, hence the decision to create an app that will generate income for them.

Akif says while technological advancement has been a good platform for promoting the work of local artists, it also has its disadvantages.

In his 30-years in the business, Akif says he used to pay artists around $15,000 per album recording, and this has been reduced drastically over the years due to piracy.

He says technology played a huge role in this, but there is hope the new app will revive the local music industry.

“I’m pretty sure that this music App will work and a lot of artists will get the benefit out of it. Technology have gone ahead of us and we have to change our style of selling music.”

Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum who inaugurated the event last night, says this is a great step for the music industry.

He says the introduction of the app is timely as more Fijians have moved to the digital space, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Today over 95 percent of the population actually have access to connectivity, because apps don’t work if you don’t have connectivity. We have over 600,000 smartphones in Fiji, we have more SIM cards operating than the actual sim cards in Fiji operating than the actual number of people, so people actually have more than one sim cards. These things gives people access to technology, access to technology means access to lot more apps and various other services available.”

The App will soon be renamed to Fijian Music.

It is now available on the Play store and people can opt for different subscriptions with payments done through Mpaisa.