Good news about Showmax

The Market Research Foundation’s (MRF) latest Marketing All Product Survey (MAPS) data suggests that MultiChoice-owned Showmax could be making inroads in its fight against Netflix’s dominance in the country.

It shows that Netflix’s viewership dipped in the first quarter of 2024, while Showmax’s viewership grew during the quarter.

“Showmax had a slight increase, suggesting that Showmax may be making some inroads,” the MRF said.

Major players in the streaming space saw significant growth between 2021 and 2023, with the MAPS data showing that Netflix viewership has increased to 14.6% in 2023 from 10.6% in 2021.

Showmax viewership grew by 3.9% from 4.4% to 8.3% over the same period.

The MRF notes that players like Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and Disney+ have seen small but steady increases over the past three years, albeit from a much smaller base.

The MRF’s MAPS overview data for January 2021 to December 2023 revealed that Netflix had 6.3 million subscribers in South Africa, and the country had seen a steady uptick in on-demand streaming.

In comparison, its data estimated Showmax subscribers to be around 3.6 million.

It collects its MAPS data from annual surveys of a sample of the South African population. The MRF interviews women and men aged 15 and older from all races and provinces.

According to the data, roughly eight million South Africans have access to on-demand streaming services, with YouTube being the most watched in the country.

It also noted that streaming penetration had reached 19% in South Africa by December 2023.

The results came from a sample size of just over eight million interviewees, of which 55% were male and 45% were female.

Of the respondents, 55% reside in metropolitan areas, while 30% and 15% live in urban and rural areas, respectively.

One of the challenges streaming services seem to face globally is password sharing, where someone with an active subscription shares their login credentials with friends or family to access the service.

Major players like Netflix and Showmax owner MultiChoice have attempted to crack down on password sharing in recent years. However, according to MRF CEO Johann Koster, password sharing is still rife.

“An interesting point in the streaming numbers is that only about half of the people that access Netflix and Showmax do so with their own login, indicating that the sharing of login details is clearly prevalent,” he said.

DStv cracked down on the practice by limiting every account to a single stream at any given time in March 2022.

While MultiChoice faced significant backlash for the streaming limit, MultiChoice CEO Calvo Mawela said the change had worked and that the broadcaster had seen an increase in streaming numbers since implementing it.

He also said they were working on allowing more simultaneous streams, and the company has since launched its Extra Stream add-on. However, additional streams are limited to mobile only.

Netflix took a different approach to password sharing, launching its Profile Transfer feature in October 2022.

The feature allows Netflix subscribers to move profiles between accounts, including personalised recommendations, viewing history, saved games, and other settings.

Although it didn’t provide an immediate solution to password sharing, it addressed one of the major consequences users would face if they were forced to get their own Netflix account.

It also introduced functionality that isn’t only useful for “account borrowers”.

For example, couples who break up and children leaving the house may want to transfer their profiles to another account.

Netflix then steadily increased its monitoring of potential password sharing, making it increasingly inconvenient for subscribers to share passwords.

For example, it would occasionally require the main account holder to enter a one-time PIN on devices accessing the service outside their home network.

Netflix also launched a sub-account feature in many countries around the world, allowing members to effectively add extra subscribers under their account for less than a full Netflix Standard subscription.

However, it has opted not to launch this functionality in South Africa, instead offering an add-free Netflix Basic account for R99 per month, and Netflix Mobile for R49 per month.

Following the implementation of Profile Transfer and sub-accounts, Netflix cracked down on password sharing entirely.

If it detects that an account is being used in a secondary location for a long period, Netflix now prompts users to confirm whether they would like to reset their home base.

The viewer is prompted to rehome the account, which requires a one-time PIN sent to the primary account holder, or to subscribe to Netflix.