Naspers recently reported a 30% increase in revenue to R26.7 billion for the financial year to 31 March 2009. According to the company the main drivers behind the revenue increase included the resilience of its internet and pay-television operations.<\/p>\n
Naspers’s pay-television business recorded growth of 683,000 new gross subscribers. “The group now reaches 3.3 million homes across Africa, a 26% increase,” Naspers said in a results statement. Pay-TV accounted for R14.858 billion of the company’s revenue.<\/p>\n
Competition is however looming in the pay-TV market. On Digital Media (ODM)<\/a> has indicated that it will launch commercial services in the second half of 2009, and give “subscribers real choice at an affordable price”.<\/p>\n Telkom Media was set to be closed down by Telkom, but in an 11 th hour deal Telkom managed to avert the winding up of their pay-TV venture by selling its 75% interest to Shenzhen Media South Africa<\/a>. No further details are available about the Chinese company’s plans with Telkom Media.<\/p>\n This looming competition does not bother Naspers CEO Koos Bekker much. Bekker was quoted by Fin24 as saying that “the competition is unlikely to mean much. Multichoice has always competed against a variety of products”.<\/p>\n Bekker did however say that the entertainment and TV landscape is changing, and that the Internet is the new frontier. “I would be very surprised if, in 10 years from now, there is a distinct pay-TV sector. It’s all going to move onto the internet,” Bekker is quoted as saying by Fin24.<\/p>\n “There will still be satellite feeds, but essentially we will be competing with internet companies. The whole electronic media world is becoming one big cloud and we’ll have to compete with that.”<\/p>\n