Multichoice the direct broadcast satellite service provider and owners of Dstv and Gotv is currently present in 50 nations in Sub-Saharan Africa. There have been several debates on fair pricing of Dstv bouquets across the continent of Africa. We have taken a look at costs of Dstv subscriptions in 2023 across 7 countries: South Africa, Nigeria, Cameron, Togo, Benin, Ghana and Gambia.
Dstv subscribers in Nigeria pay the least for the Pay Tv service in the Sub Saharan Africa. This is followed by the South Africans and Ghana respectively. There is a uniform rate of prices for all Dstv packages in four countries: Benin, Togo Cameron and Gambia. Although, these prices are fixed based on economic and industry conditions which are peculiar to each country. There are two key factors that determines the subscription rate; number of subscriber base and operating environment.
Subscriber Base
Nigeria having highest numbers of Dstv subscriber base in Africa could have contributed to having the lowest monthly subscription of Dstv packages. Nigeria is the most populous county in Africa. She boast of about 230million population and definitely a positive for any emerging market. It has been difficult to estimate or access actual total numbers of Dstv and Gotv subscribers in Nigeria. According to the Multichoice in its 2022 financial report, it stated that it has only 12.8 million subscribers at the end of the company year with an estimated revenue of about N292 Billion. However, according to reports, it is believed that this figures could be more as almost every household or businesses in Nigeria have access to Dstv or Gotv. Another source estimated total numbers of Dstv subscribers to be around 25million (around 10.5% of the population) in Nigeria and even growing. However, the numbers of active subscribers are also critical monthly revenue drive. The Dstv subscribers base in Benin, Togo, Gambia, Ghana and Cameron are far less than 1million hence the stable high price.
Operating Environment
Dstv bouquet prices in South Africa are the second least in Africa. Although, the subscriber base of about 8million is far lower than that of Nigeria even when it houses the Head office of Multichoice, however according to Multichoice’s most recent annual results, its Pay-TV service DStv lost South African subscribers between March 31, 2022, and March 31, 2023. Between these two dates, its subscriber base decreased by approximately 144,000, or 1 point 8 percent, from 8.016 million to 8.16 million. The decline between 2021 and 2022, from 8.177 million to 8.16 million, was significantly less, representing a loss of about 17,000 year-end subscribers.
Strength of country’s currency would affect cost of operation, recently Naira devaluation in Nigeria has lead to weakening of the country’s currency against the Dollar. Meanwhile, Multichoice Nigeria announced tarif increase in April 2023 but this was done before the floating of Naira. Further weakening of Naira could result to higher tariff increase.
Overall, high cost electricity and lack of stable power supply in Africa contribute to decline of active Dstv subscribers and shunning on the Pay Tv services. Multichoice as pioneer in the Pay-TV sector, continuously develop technology that facilitates access to information and entertainment. DStv and GOtv provide access to both local and foreign channels. These channels offer first-run movies, documentaries, kid’s programming, news, and ever demanding live sports.
