MultiChoice has reported an after-tax loss of R911 million for the six months between 1 April and 30 September 2023.<\/p>\n
This is a significant swing from the R55 million after-tax profit it posted over the same period last year.<\/p>\n
It also reported a 1% decline in revenue from R28.7 billion to R28.3 billion, while operating profit declined 22% from R6.2 billion to R4.8 billion.<\/p>\n
MultiChoice\u2019s free cash flow stood at R1.07 billion \u2014 down 40% from R1.8 billion last year.<\/p>\n
Looking at its 90-day active subscribers, MultiChoice reported a 70,000 increase in DStv subscribers in its Rest-of-Africa segment.<\/p>\n
However, in South Africa, it lost 486,000 subscribers. This resulted in a net loss across the group of 416,000 90-day active subscribers.<\/p>\n
It is the first time DStv\u2019s overall subscriber numbers have declined according to this metric.<\/p>\n
MultiChoice South Africa\u2019s external revenue decreased by 3% from R17.05 billion to R16.54 billion, with trading profit decreasing over 17% from R6.3 billion to R5.2 billion.<\/p>\n
Showmax\u2019s external revenue increased 46% from R381 million to R555 million.<\/p>\n
However, its trading losses also increased from R279 million to R799 million.<\/p>\n
MultiChoice blamed power interruptions, cost of living pressures, and sharp depreciation in local currencies against the US dollar for the decline in profitability.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe impact was mitigated by a change in focus towards subscriber retention, an improved customer mix, as well as ongoing annual pricing and cost-saving disciplines,\u201d the company stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a result, the group was able to maintain a positive trading profit in the Rest of Africa (a ZAR2.2bn organic improvement YoY) and delivered a 31% trading margin in South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also said it came off a high-growth period linked to the FIFA World Cup in the previous six months.<\/p>\n
The Rugby World Cup kicked off towards the end of the reporting period, at the beginning of September.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe South African business had to contend with the effects of ongoing high levels of load-shedding as 43% of the days in the reporting period were impacted by stage 4\u20136 load-shedding,\u201d MultiChoice stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cSubscriber growth was also affected by a decision to remove 311k non-revenue generating customers (linked to special load-shedding campaigns) from the base.\u201d<\/p>\n
MultiChoice reported that its premium customer base posted an encouraging 5% growth, reflecting a positive trend for the first time in many years.<\/p>\n
\u201cTotal content costs were up 4% in organic terms (+10% reported), driven by the ongoing investment in local content, which increased 16% YoY,\u201d it stated.<\/p>\n
MultiChoice highlighted Shaka iLembe as a notable local content investment. The show began airing in June.<\/p>\n
It also invested in several World Cups hosted in the first half of the year, such as the Netball, Women\u2019s football, and half of the Rugby World Cup tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese increases were managed through ongoing optimisation of the international content portfolio,\u201d MultiChoice said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the current environment of heightened operational risk caused by volatile currencies and consumer pressure, and considering the medium-term investment cycle for Showmax, the group remains focused on cash generation and protecting the balance sheet.\u201d<\/p>\n
DStv-owner MultiChoice has seen its half-year after-tax earnings swing from a R55-million profit, to a R911-million loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":499415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[85,35,475],"class_list":["post-515201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-dstv","tag-headline","tag-multichoice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515201"}],"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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":515217,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515201\/revisions\/515217"}],"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=515201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}