AFRICAN SVOD REVENUES TO HIGHLY INCREASE OVER THE NEXT FIVE YEARS

Revenues from African SVOD services will reach $1.06 billion dollars by 2025, up from $183 million in 2019, according to a new study from Digital TV Research. This includes the likes of native streamers iRoko and Showmax along with big international players such as Disney and Netflix. In total, subscriber numbers during this period will increase from 2.68 million to 9.72 million.

At the end of 2019, six platforms accounted for 86% of the region’s subscriber base, with this proportion predicted to increase to 94% by 2025. Netflix, already the continent’s largest SVOD with 1.41 million subscribers, is predicted to see a huge increase of 3.6 million subscribers to reach 5 million by 2025. Disney+ is not expected to launch in Africa until 2022, but it is expected to have 1.37 million paying subscribers by 2025.

Showmax, which already has millions of users, only has a small proportion (553,000) as paying subscribers. Paying subscribers are expected to more than double to 1.41 million by 2025. The report notes that many more will receive the service bundled into their satellite TV subscription.

“Over the last year, there has been a shift from cheap, local platforms towards the multinational players. This means higher revenues as their prices are higher than local players, but it also keeps subscriber numbers low,” said Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research.