DStv bloodbath coming

DStv will lose half a million customers in South Africa over the next five years, while its revenue in the country will decline by around R3 billion.

That is according to the Africa Pay TV Forecasts report from television industry intelligence firm Digital TV Research.

The report forecasts that South Africa will have about 9.2 million Pay-TV subscribers by 2027.

Of these, DStv will account for 8.4 million, which means it will remain the dominant provider in the country.

However, that figure is 500,000 less than the 8.9 million South African subscribers it had as of September 2021, according to its interim results for the current financial year.

Although the broadcaster has been bleeding high-end Premium package users over the past few years, its total subscriber count has risen due to increased uptake in the low-end and mid-market segments.

For example, its latest half-year results showed an overall increase of around 200,000 subscribers between March 2021 and September 2021.

But its average revenue per user (ARPU) has taken repeated hits from 2017 due to fewer subscribers on its most expensive packages.

Digital TV Research also said it expected overall pay-TV revenue in South Africa to sit at $2 billion (R31.27 billion) by 2027, with DStv supplying nearly all of it.

For comparison, DStv-operator MultiChoice’s annual revenue in South Africa was already at R34.3 billion for the year ended March 2021. That means it should expect a decline in revenue of around R3 billion by 2027.

While the report’s authors would not state the reasons for the reduction in subscribers and revenue to MyBroadand, DStv has increasingly come under pressure from Internet-based video streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video in recent years.

MultiChoice might absorb the pay-TV revenue reduction somewhat by increasing subscribers on its Showmax streaming service.

But as more streaming services reach South Africa’s shores, it will have to invest heavily in original content, with international powerhouses expected to pull their movies and TV shows from rival platforms when they launch their own services.

The imminent arrival of Disney+ in South Africa, for example, is expected to see MultiChoice lose the rights to broadcast programming from a large selection of sought-after franchises owned by the House of Mouse.

Unlike pay-TV rival Canal+, which also owns over 15% of MultiChoice, DStv has thus far failed to secure partnership agreements with Disney.

As a result, MultiChoice subscribers do not have access to some of the most popular TV shows of the last two years, including The Mandalorian, WandaVision, Loki, and Falcon & The Winter Soldier.

Netflix in South Africa saw a similar loss of shows like Star Trek Discovery, as Paramount+ is set for its own global expansion in 2022.

Things look much rosier for MultiChoice in the rest of Africa, where the overall pay-TV market is expected to see significant growth.

According to the report, MultiChoice will continue to dominate amidst strong competition from StarTimes and Canal+.

Digital TV Research forecasted that MultiChoice would grow its subscribers to 20.8 million across its DStv and GoTV offerings by 2027. That would be a substantial increase from the 12.2 million it reported in September 2021.

Overall, it is anticipated that Pay-TV subscriber numbers in Africa will climb by 18 million to reach 57 million between 2021 and 2027.

Digital TV Research principal analyst Simon Murray said that the three main competitors would battle it out for subscribers, often by cutting prices.

The result is that pay-TV revenue is expected to increase by a less impressive 35% during the same period, reaching $6.46 billion (R101.57 billion).

The chart below shows the forecasted number of subscribers each of the biggest pay-TV providers in Africa will have by 2027.

Now read: All the big DStv changes of 2021