Sylvia Duruson
In a move to broaden its reach and connect cultures through a multilingual digital library, the French-based digital reading platform, YouScribe, has partnered with Digital Virgo and MTN to launch its services in Ghana.
The digital reading library’s expansion into Ghana is an ambitious step, as the platform aims to provide Ghanaian readers with access to a diverse catalogue of content. This includes nearly 200,000 English-language ebooks, numerous press titles, and thousands of audiobooks and comic books.
To make the platform accessible to Ghanaian readers, YouScribe has collaborated with local publishers, such as Adaex Edu, Subsaharan Publishers, and the African Books Collective, to curate a selection of content tailored specifically to the Ghanaian audience. This strategic partnership allows the platform to offer a more diverse and localized reading experience.
According to YouScribe’s founder and CEO, Juan Pirlot de Corbion, “The launch of YouScribe in Ghana is an important and ambitious step in our aspiration to connect cultures through a multilingual digital library featuring authors from all over the continent.”
With this development, prospective readers in Ghana will be able to subscribe to the platform for a daily fee of GH₵ 0.75 (approximately US$0.06), granting them access to the extensive digital catalogue.
Ghana now joins South Africa as the second English-speaking country to welcome the YouScribe platform. The platform is already present in approximately 11 Francophone African countries, including Tunisia, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Morocco, Guinea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Mali.
The rise of local authors using digital platforms to share their stories with a global audience has fueled the sector’s growth. According to Statista, Ghana’s ePublishing market is expected to generate US$35.49 million in revenue in 2024, with a 4.09% annual growth rate (CAGR 2024-2027), resulting in a projected market volume of US$40.02 million by 2027.
Renaud Ganascia, Digital Virgo’s Africa Head of Sales, emphasized the platform’s social and societal impact, stating that the company will continue to work with MTN and YouScribe to reach a large number of mobile customers across the continent.
Amid this development, a report by Statista revealed that in the third quarter of 2023, 99.7 percent of Internet users in Ghana had smartphones, with an Internet penetration of about 70% as of January 2024, indicating a favorable environment for the digital reading platform’s expansion.
