By Ayobami Adedinni
AzuriTV, the first complete home TV pay-as-you-go package for off-grid households, developed by Azuri Technologies, was announced winner of the ‘Innovative Technology of the Year’ award at the annual Africa Utility Week Industry Awards, honouring pioneering projects and people in the industry.
Azuri Technologies, a leading commercial provider of PayGo Solar Home Systems to rural off-grid communities, was commended for its innovative solar TV service at the awards ceremony held in Cape Town.
The AzuriTV service allows consumers with no access to the grid to receive up to 60 channels of content on a solar powered 24” TV, at a cost of less than 1 US$ per day. Customers don’t have to purchase separately a dish or set-top box as everything is included in the package.
There are also four LED lights for use inside and outside the home to give customers more choice on how they light their homes.
“We are delighted to be awarded the Innovative Technology of the Year award for AzuriTV and to be acknowledged by the industry and our peers for our work and the difference we are making in Africa,” said Simon Bransfield-Garth, CEO at Azuri Technologies, following the announcement.
Azuri partnered with Zuku in December 2016 TV to launch the first complete pay-asyou-go satellite TV package for households without electricity in the Kenyan market.
“There is a huge appetite in the off-grid market for television but in rural areas it is often difficult to receive a TV signal and the number of channels that can be accessed varies widely.
AzuriTV marks the next step in bringing news and entertainment to everyone in Kenya and wider Africa, no matter where they live and in an affordable manner,” adds Simon Bransfield-Garth.
As with other Azuri PayGo products, the Azuri PayGo Solar TV package is installed by an Azuri agent in a customer’s house in an easy one-time installation process. After as little as 2 years of payments, customers own all of the equipment and continue to pay only for the satellite service.
AzuriTV was initially rolled out in the central region of Kenya, but there is huge demand for TV in other countries in the region including Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Nigeria where Azuri has a presence.
AzuriTV marks the next step in Azuri’s ‘energy escalator’ pathway to enable customers to step-up to higher value services.