After announcing that it had reached one million readers on the continent, YouScribe, a digital streaming library, has unveiled its first reading barometer.
One million is a record number of readers in the history of the company, which has successfully diversified its offering and expanded internationally to capture new market opportunities. This has been a successful gamble for Youscribe, which has notably leveraged strategic partnerships with the Orange group, Digital Virgo (mobile payments and digital marketing), and CANAL+.
Created in 2011 in France, Youscribe has established itself as a model digital library, providing access to more than one million books via mobile devices. Today, the startup has become the largest streaming library in France and is expanding rapidly across Africa. And with good reason, as 95% of its readership is based on the African continent. Among the most popular formats, digital books remain the most consulted, accounting for 70% of reads, ahead of audiobooks and comic books. In addition, 90% of reads on the platform are in French. Looking at African reading trends, literature remains the preferred theme among readers, just ahead of works classified as "professional resources." The reading profile is mainly structured around novels and short stories, and African romantic literature, which account for 51.1% and 25.3% of readings, respectively.
Today, the startup is established in 11 African countries (Ivory Coast, Senegal, Morocco, Mali, South Africa, Cameroon, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Congo DRC, Madagascar, Guinea) and continues to embody its ambition to make reading accessible to as many people as possible and to raise the level of education on the African continent. Next steps? Benin, Togo, Nigeria, and the Middle East.