African SVOD Base to Triple

By 2026, there will be 15.06 million paying SVOD subscribers in Africa, three times the 5.11 million expected at the end of this year, Digital TV Research projects.

South Africa and Nigeria will be home to 2.3 million of those 10 million new subs in a highly fragmented market; they are the only two territories in the region that will have more than a million SVOD subscribers.

Netflix will be out front with more than half of the region’s subs this year; that 51 percent share will drop to 39 percent by 2026 with a total of 5.84 million customers. Disney+ is slated to arrive next year in 12 markets and is forecast to hit 2.1 million by 2026. Amazon is expected to hit 1.9 million subs by 2026. Regional player Showmax will fare well, rising from 861,000 subs to 2.1 million.

“The selective launch plans from some global platforms work in favor of regional players such as Showmax and MyCanal,” said Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research.