![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Premium-subscribers-final.jpg\")
<\/a>DStv Compact Plus and Premium pricing versus premium segment subscriber numbers from 2019 to 2023.<\/p><\/div>\n
Between 2019 and 2023, DStv’s Premium and Compact Plus pricing increased by R70. Over the same period, its subscriber base in the premium segment declined by approximately 300,000 customers.<\/p>\n
This is despite DStv’s overall subscriber base increasing substantially in 2020 and 2021, driven mainly by growth in entry-level customers.<\/p>\n
DStv is also losing subscribers in its mid-market segment. The subscriber base peaked at three million in 2021 and has also lost around 300,000 subscribers since.<\/p>\n
Between 2019 and 2021, DStv’s mid-market grew steadily from 2.8 million subscribers. However, the decline from 2021 onwards correlates with DStv’s 2022 and 2023 price hikes for the Compact package.<\/p>\n
These years saw the highest price increases in DStv’s Compact package. In 2022, DStv’s increased its Compact package’s price by 4.89% and implemented a price hike of 4.70% in 2023.<\/p>\n
For reference, it increased the Compact package price by 3.54% and 2.51% in 2019 and 2021, respectively. It didn’t implement any hike in 2020.<\/p>\n
The chart below plots DStv’s Compact price increases against its mid-market subscriber numbers over the years.<\/p>\n
<\/a>DStv Compact pricing versus mid-market segment subscriber numbers from 2019 to 2023.<\/p><\/div>\n
South Africans ditching DStv in tough times<\/h2>\n
A recent survey from InfoQuest revealed that MultiChoice’s DStv is among the hardest hit<\/a><\/strong> by cost-cutting in South African households.<\/p>\n The country’s inflation rates have increased substantially in recent months, substantially pushing up the price of food, fuel, and other essentials.<\/p>\n To curb inflation, the Reserve Bank has implemented a series of interest rate hikes, pausing adjustments<\/a><\/strong> for the first time in several cycles this month.<\/p>\n This, combined with electricity, water, and property tariff hikes, has forced many South Africans to implement cost-cutting measures, particularly regarding non-essential services like gym memberships and TV subscriptions.<\/p>\n 18% of participants in the survey said they were forced to terminate their DStv subscriptions due to these financial pressures.<\/p>\n Of the casualties, DStv was second only to gym memberships, which 28% of respondents said they had cancelled.<\/p>\n With linear pay-TV subscribers starting to decline in South Africa, MultiChoice has gone all-in on its streaming service, Showmax.<\/p>\n Showmax and MultiChoice Connected Video CEO Yolisa Phahle said in a recent presentation to investors and shareholders that the streaming platform would make R18 billion in net revenue in 5 years <\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 an astounding figure.<\/p>\n To achieve this goal, MultiChoice has inked a deal with Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Sky in March to sell a 30% stake in Showmax<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Showmax will switch to using Peacock’s technology as part of the deal. Peacock is NBCUniversal’s video streaming service.<\/p>\n MultiChoice CFO Tim Jacobs has told MyBroadband that the Connected Video team is working full steam on customising Peacock<\/strong><\/a> for the African countries where MultiChoice operates.<\/p>\n This includes being able to take payments, ensuring apps run on lower-end devices, and optimising data consumption for users without uncapped connections.<\/p>\n The launch of “Showmax 2.0” is currently set for the second half of MultiChoice’s financial year \u2014 between October 2023 and March 2024.<\/p>\n MultiChoice’s DStv has lost approximately 300,000 Premium and Compact Plus subscribers since 2019, but it continues to implement price hikes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":499415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[85,12745,45685,12747,35,475],"class_list":["post-499005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-dstv","tag-dstv-compact","tag-dstv-compact-plus","tag-dstv-premium","tag-headline","tag-multichoice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499005"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":502420,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499005\/revisions\/502420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Banking on Showmax<\/h2>\n
\nNow read: Why DStv owner MultiChoice’s share price is getting hammered<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"