Africa Pay-TV Subscriptions to Increase by 17 Million

By 2025, Africa is expected to have 47.3 million pay-TV subscribers, up from 30.7 million at the end of 2019.

Nigeria will contribute 10 million of the 17 million new subscribers over the time period, according to a new report from Digital TV Research. Between 2019 and 2025, African subscriber numbers are expected to rise by 54 percent, though pay-TV revenues will rise by only 31 percent, an indication that subscribers will pay less. Pay-TV revenues are slated to reach $7.20 billion by 2025, up by $1.72 billion.

Three groups accounted for 93 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s pay-TV subscribers in 2019, all of which provide a satellite-TV platform and a pay DTT platform. Multichoice had 14.56 million subs across satellite TV platform DStv and DTT platform GOtv by end-2019, a total set to grow to 18.05 million by 2025. France’s Vivendi had 4.73 million subs to its Canal Plus satellite-TV platform and Easy TV DTT platforms and will climb to 7.35 million over the same period. StarTimes/StarSat is anticipated to see growth from 9.10 million subs to 16.39 million.

Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “Despite the strong subscriber growth, competition is intense. Prices and ARPUs are falling as rivals fight to gain subscribers.”