{"id":571368,"date":"2024-11-21T12:02:22","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T10:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=571368"},"modified":"2024-11-21T12:02:28","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T10:02:28","slug":"multichoices-plan-to-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/571368-multichoices-plan-to-win.html","title":{"rendered":"MultiChoice’s plan to win"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MultiChoice is transforming from a traditional pay-TV operator to an entertainment and consumer services company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MultiChoice originated from M-Net, a satellite television subscription service launched in 1985 with 12 hours of daily programming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was tough initially. However, its founder, Koos Bekker, pushed ahead and convinced shareholders that pay TV was the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By September 1987, M-Net\u2019s decoders were in 50,000 homes. Half a year later, that number grew to 100,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company recorded a loss of R37 million that year, but a year later, that had swung to a profit of R20 million. It was listed on the JSE at R1.00 per share in 1990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bekker divided M-Net into separate divisions \u2014 one focused on transmitting entertainment channels and the other on cellular operations, signal distribution, and subscriber management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latter would become MultiChoice, under which Naspers launched Digital Satellite television (DStv) in South Africa in October 1995.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1996, the service was expanded to MultiChoice\u2019s other African markets, and DStv gradually became more sought-after due to its expanding channel selection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1997, MultiChoice acquired a large stake in Irdeto, the world leader in digital platform cybersecurity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2005, MultiChoice launched its first personal video recorder (PVR), revolutionising the DStv offering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DStv Catch Up was launched in 2010, and the following year, MultiChoice launched the digital terrestrial TV platform GOTv. It launched BoxOffice the same year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next decade, there were many new product launches and innovations, including the DStv Explora, Showmax, and the DStv App.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the mid-2010s, DStv\u2019s subscribers stood at over 8 million, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 23%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DStv became the leader in pay-TV entertainment in Africa and sports broadcasting through the SuperSport platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MultiChoice Group was unbundled from Naspers and listed separately on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It continued its strong growth, and 39 years after its launch in South Africa, 19.3 million households in 50 countries used MultiChoice services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rise of streaming services and global cord-cutting trends<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Affordable, uncapped broadband access and the rise of streaming services like Netflix have significantly disrupted the pay-TV sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cable and satellite TV providers have lost over 20 million subscribers in the United States over the last decade, and this trend is accelerating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest research reveals that there are expected to be 80 million cord-cutting households in the United States by 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DStv has been surprisingly resilient. Despite global downward trends, The service has grown over the last six years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the increased availability of fast and affordable fibre access in South Africa and parts of Africa and increased streaming adoption has put pressure on DStv.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2023, MultiChoice had 23.5 million 90-day active subscribers. Eighteen months later, the number has dropped to 19.3 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It showed that Africa is not immune to the global cord-cutting trend, which has forced pay-TV operators to adjust their business models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MultiChoice has been working on transforming from a pay-TV operator to an entertainment and consumer services company to adjust to the changing environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Showmax is one of its core strategies. The platform has shown encouraging growth and is focused on enhancing its content line-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also bedding down distribution partnerships, expanding payment channel integrations and refining its go-to-market strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irdeto also delivered encouraging revenue growth after securing a major Asian customer and expanding managed services with a key customer in Australasia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MultiChoice\u2019s sports betting platform, KingMakers, continued to gain strong momentum in Nigeria, securing the second position in the online betting market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SuperSportBet, the South African business launched late last year, showed early signs of success and reported a tenfold increase in net gaming revenue in nine months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MultiChoice\u2019s fintech platform, Moment, is live in 40 African countries and has grown rapidly, with total payment volumes (TPV) growing to USD 242 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company\u2019s immediate focus is on improving profitability and cash generation in its South African businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also streamlining the cost base in the Rest of Africa to return this business to profitability and investing in Showmax to make it the leading streaming platform on the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MultiChoice is further supporting KingMakers, Moment and DStv Insurance as additional revenue streams and to drive scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy executing these objectives well, the group will be well-positioned to deliver future growth and create value as Africa\u2019s leading video entertainment platform,\u201d MultiChoice said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MultiChoice is transforming from a traditional pay-TV operator to an entertainment and consumer services company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":569667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[85,475,32140],"class_list":["post-571368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-dstv","tag-multichoice","tag-showmax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571368"}],"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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571368"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":571417,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571368\/revisions\/571417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}