Africa to add 16 million pay TV subscribers between 2018 and 2024

Monday, January 7th, 2019
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Africa set for 46 million pay TV subs

Sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to add more than 16 million pay TV subscribers between 2018 and 2024 to bring its total to 45.63 million, according to the Sub-Saharan Africa Pay TV Forecasts report.

Africa - Pay TV subscriber growth by operator
Source: Digital TV Research

Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “Subscriber numbers will climb by 61% over this period, but pay TV revenues will rise by only 42% – indicating lower ARPUs. Pay TV revenues will reach $7.72 billion by 2024, up by $2.3 billion on 2018.”

Three groups accounted for 93% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s pay TV subscribers in 2018 – although this proportion will fall to 89% by 2024. Multichoice had 14.34 million subs across satellite TV platform DStv and DTT platform GOtv by end-2018. This total will grow by 5 million to 19.37 million by 2024.

France’s Vivendi had 4.01 million subs to its Canal Plus satellite TV platform and Easy TV DTT platform by end-2018, which will climb to 6.21 million by 2024.
StarTimes/StarSat will enjoy the most impressive growth: from 7.75 million subs at end-2018 to 14.85 million by 2024 – up from 54% of the Multichoice total to 77% of its total by 2024.