South Africa (3.24mn by 2025) will remain the subscription leader, with Nigeria (2.14mn) in second place.
African SVOD revenues will reach $1.05bn by 2025, sextuple the 2019 total of $183mn, according to a report by Digital TV Research. The report also forecasts 9.72mn SVOD subscriptions by 2025, up from 2.68mn at end-2019.
South Africa (3.24mn by 2025) will remain the subscription leader, with Nigeria (2.14mn) in second place.
The top six platforms accounted for 86% of the region’s SVOD subscribers by end 2019, with this proportion to climb to 94% by 2025. Netflix will add 3.6mn subscribers to a total of five million by 2025. Disney Plus is not expected to start until 2022 but will have 1.37mn paying subscribers by 2025.
Showmax will have 1.41mn paying subscribers by 2025 – with many more receiving it for free as part of their premium satellite TV subscription. Multichoice has a distribution deal with HBO, which is likely to prevent an HBO Max launch in Africa.
Commenting on the report, Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “Over the last year, there has been a shift from cheap, local platforms towards the multinational players. This means higher revenues as their prices are higher than local players, but it also keeps subscriber numbers low.”
