In the five years before its acquisition by France’s Groupe Canal+, MultiChoice’s aggressive cost-cutting programme delivered cumulative savings of approximately R9.6 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cost-cutting ensured the group’s survival long enough for it to be acquired by Canal+ amid years of severe market turbulence and a botched gambit on the now-defunct Showmax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“MultiChoice has embedded an aggressive cost savings culture into its business to ensure fit-for-purpose operational efficiencies,” the company said in its 2020 and 2021 financial results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Cost reduction and efficiencies are an important component of our strategy and enable us to deliver positive operating leverage,” it stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the last five financial years in which MultiChoice published financial results, the largest savings were achieved in FY2025, where it reported a record R3.7 billion in savings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It managed to cut costs by R1.9 billion in 2024, R1.2 billion in 2023, R1.2 billion in 2022, and R1.5 billion in 2021. It said the initiative drove operational efficiencies across the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2025, its reported savings were nearly double those of the year prior, and\u2026 “exceeded our increased cost savings target of R2.5 billion.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the time, the record savings positioned the company to absorb R3 billion in currency losses due to a collapse in foreign exchange rates in its rest of Africa markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cost-saving efforts accelerated in 2021 amid the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and load-shedding in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, even after the pandemic subsided and load-shedding was suspended, MultiChoice was unable to recover and continued to drive cost-cutting to remain profitable while avoiding large price increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group was still seeing subscriber growth at that point, which continued until the 2023 financial year, where it reported an all-time high of 23.5 million active subscribers across all its markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, its most valuable DStv Premium subscribers in South Africa had already started cancelling in 2016, the same year Netflix went global.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MultiChoice initially compensated for this drop by growing its cheaper, mass-market tiers, such as DStv Compact and Access, especially in its Rest of Africa markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, by 2021, even some of the cheaper tiers began losing subscribers. As of December 2025, the company’s reported total subscriber base was 14.4 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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In January, MultiChoice’s new owner, Canal+, announced new cost-cutting targets, aiming to reduce its combined annual operating expenses by R7.5 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said it would aim for free cash flow of R5.6 billion per year by 2030 through aggressive cost-cutting and operational streamlining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of these measures was the shuttering of Showmax on 30 April 2026, with its content moved to the DStv Stream service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n