By Nse Anthony-Uko
(Sundiata Post) — The sub-Saharan Africa pay television revenues will climb by 41 per cent to $6.64 billion by 2023, up by $2 billion from 2017 while the number of subscribers will increase by 74 per cent in the same period to reach 40.89 million, according to a report by Digital TV Research.
Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, said pay TV competition in Sub-Saharan Africa is becoming more and more intense, especially given the launch of Kwese TV in 14 countries during 2017. Murray said pay-TV operators in most countries have lowered subscription fees and or subsidised/given away equipment as competition intensifies. Not all of them are expected to survive in the long run, but several pay-TV operators are booming.
Nigeria will have the most pay TV subscribers by 2023, overtaking South Africa in 2021. The top eight countries will supply three-quarters of the total in 2023. Multichoice had 12.48 million subscriptions across satellite TV platform DStv and DTT platform GOtv by end-2017, which will grow to 16.66 million by 2023.
The report said Kenya will continue to show considerable digital TV growth, but it is overcrowded. Kenya now has two pay DTT platforms, a cable network and five main satellite TV operators, which Digital TV Research said is too many for a country with only 4.01 million TV households.
South Africa from the 23.49 million pay TV subscribers at end-2017, 13.78 million were satellite TV and 9.11 million DTT. By 2023, satellite TV will contribute 20.89 million and DTT 17.53 million. This means an extra seven million pay satellite TV subscribers and eight million pay DTT homes.
Vivendi had 2.96 million subs to its Canal Plus satellite TV platform and Easy TV by end-2017; forecast to climb by nearly 2 million to 4.87 million by 2023. StarTimes/StarSat will enjoy the most impressive growth: from 6.23 million subs at end-2017 to 13.42 million by 2023 – growing from half the Multichoice total in 2017 to 81 per cent of its total by 2023.
