Multichoice Group, Africa’s leading pay TV services provider, has reported that 44% of subscription revenue in the Rest of Africa (RoA) was generated from Nigeria in the financial year ended March 31, 2023.
The pay TV entertainment services company’s just published full-year financial statement showed that the RoA’s business generated a trading profit of ZAR0.9bn, representing 4% t profit higher than the ZAR2.8bn it posted in the previous year.
The financial statement also reflected that while the RoA subscription revenue grew by 16% to ZAR20.4 billion in the period under review, Multichoice Nigeria accounted for 44% based on the 29% growth recorded in subscription revenue from N177.5 billion (ZAR7.1 billion) in 2022 to N227.1 billion (ZAR9.1 billion) in 2023.
According to the financial performance report, the subscription revenues from the Nigerian operation was boosted by the hosting of the company’s annual TV game show, ‘Big Brother Naija’, which usually attracts millions of Nigerian youths.
Also, the company reported that the Rest of Africa’s revenues now contributed 38% to overall group revenues, up from 33% in the prior year, adding that the financial performance of the year was the first positive trading profit recorded since the group was listed in 2019.
Apart from the subscription price hike, Multichoice also attributed its the strong financial performance in the year under review to decoder subsidy and marketing investments for the FIFA World Cup, adding that outside South Africa, the group said its overall subscriber base was also boosted by the Rest of Africa.
It reported: “The strong performance in the Rest of Africa, which added 1.4m subscribers, was underpinned by the decoder subsidy and marketing investments for the FIFA World Cup, which will be fully paid back by the end of 1H FY24. This together with annual price increases resulted in the Rest of Africa delivering positive trading profit for the first time since the group was listed in 2019. This is an exceptional performance from the Rest of Africa team as it was achieved despite absorbing more than ZAR2.9 billion in currency losses in the last four financial years.
“In contrast, the South African consumer environment weakened sharply, especially in the second half of the financial year. Permanent high stages of load-shedding, interest rate hikes, and elevated inflation levels have left a large portion of the group’s customer base unable to watch or afford video entertainment services. Although SA 90-day subscribers grew by 0.3m YoY, lower levels of activity, represented by active days, were experienced which resulted in a 2% decline in SA revenue”, Multichoice added.
The group added 1.7 million 90-day active subscribers, representing 8% year-on-year growth, to close the year with 23.5 million subscribers. The 90-day subscriber base comprised 14.2 million households (60%) in the Rest of Africa and 9.3 million households (40%) in South Africa.
It would be recalled that the pay TV services company further jacked up its subscription price in Nigeria in May this year, a decision that attracted strong criticisms from its DSTV and GoTV subscribers in the country.
