DStv is bleeding Premium subscribers
MultiChoice Group has published its annual results for the year ended 31 March 2020, showing that its DStv Premium product remains under pressure in South Africa.
The results showed a continued decline in the number of DStv Premium and Compact Plus subscribers in South Africa.
MultiChoice combined Premium and Compact Plus into a single category for the purposes of showing year-over-year subscriber decline of 4% or 100,000 subscribers in the region.
The company also changed its primary reporting metric for subscribers to active 90-day subscribers, which is defined as all subscribers that have an active primary subscription within the 90-day period on or before the reporting date.
“As expected, the ongoing change in subscriber mix towards the mass market, combined with the pricing strategy, resulted in monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) declining 4% from R302 to R290,” MultiChoice said.
“Growth was affected by one-off sport events in the prior year and some country-specific issues.”
The company added that despite global and country-specific macro-economic challenges, it added 900,000 90-day active subscribers over the past year.
“This represents growth of 5% year on year (YoY), which is somewhat lower compared to the prior year due to rising consumer pressure in many markets, drought-related electricity shortages in southern Africa, and the fact that last year’s growth benefited from specific one-off events such as the FIFA World Cup which did not recur this year,” it said.
“The 90-day subscriber base is split between 11.1 million households (57%) in the Rest of Africa and 8.4 million (43%) in South Africa.”
Subscriber mix
DStv showed a reduction in its Premium subscriber mix last year, too, with the results showing that the company is increasingly relying on the adoption of its mass-market offering.
MultiChoice classifies its subscribers into three market segments for reporting purposes: Premium, Mid-market, and Mass-market.
These reflect the following subscribers:
- Premium – DStv Premium and Compact Plus
- Mid-market – DStv Compact and Commercial
- Mass-market – DStv Family, Access, and EasyView
The image below illustrates the company’s subscriber mix in South Africa using the segments listed above.
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