The new Chief Executive Officer of StarTimes, David Zhang, was unveiled to the media on Monday, 6th April 2019, to discuss his plans for the company during his tenure. In his speech, he noted that the company was poised to become one of the most influential media platforms in the world, in its quest to provide affordable entertainment to every home.
He said, “I joined StarTimes Group in China about 30 years ago exactly on the 12th of July 1989 and I have worked in the overseas department in Africa for 7 years now. Before I go on, let me remind you about our company and what we do. In 2009, we established a joint venture between NTA StarTimes to form NTA-StarTV Network Limited, popularly known as StarTimes.
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“Firstly, we started mainly as a pay-tv company, offering DTT service that allows Nigerians to watch digital satellite TV a from different parts of the country using just an antenna and a decoder. Our customers on DTT now enjoy more than 100 channels in sports, entertainment, news, kids programs, religion and much more. After some years we introduced DTH, which is the Dish. With this service, we broadcast programs to all our customers reaching more than 30 African countries as at today.
“That is not all, our most recent business offering is our OTT business called StarTimes ON. StarTimes ON is our online video streaming service. It is the next generation of StarTimes streaming service. It introduces new features such as video on demand (VOD) live TV and lots of movies, sports and entertainment content all on the mobile app and free of charge.
We are a major investor in Nigeria, with our investment put at over $220m. We also employ many Nigerians today, with over direct and indirect employment to over 1,000 Nigerians in all 36 states of the country and indirect employment to more than 3,000 staff through our dealers. Because of our influence in Africa, the Chinese government selected us to implement the Access to digital satellite TV for 10,000 African Villages, with Nigeria getting 1,000 of those villages. This project is almost completed and we are proud to be the contractors in all of Africa”.
Continuing, he reiterated his commitment to the company’s objectives, while soliciting the support of all stakeholders to succeed.
He said, “Since we launched in Nigeria in 2010, our mission has remained the same; to provide affordable quality entertainment to every African home, and we do this through innovation, integrity, diligent and devotion. This has helped us to get closer to our vision which is to become one of the most influential media groups in the world.
“As I am back in Nigeria as CEO, I hope that all of you, who are already good friends with our company will give me more support as we work together every day to ensure that more Nigerians are aware of our good works to provide affordable entertainment to every home”.
and then