South Africa is the largest subscriber to pay TV in Africa. The country will have 7,242,000 subscribers for the service by 2018. In end-2014, the country registered 5.43 subscriptions with growth rate of 30% for 2018. These data was released in a report by Dataxis, multinational which provides market analysis in relation to media, telecom, and TV industries.

In South Africa, pay TV will know a significant growth in households. 13.3 million Households will subscribe the service by 2018, thus soaring 10% comparing to 2015-ending. This will result in decline number of subscribers to FTA (Free-To-Air) terrestrial TV dropping from 48.2% to 34.5%. Meanwhile, new paid DTT (Digital Terrestrial TV) services and streaming TV will boost.

Pay TV owes its good performances in South Africa to the success of DSTV of Mutlichoice who alone, is expected to have 7.1 million subscribers in 2018, thus 99.5% of forecast 7,242,000 subscribers.

Competition includes Siyaya Tv, Close Tv, Fermez TV, Mindset Tv, Kagiso Tv and Chinese operator StarTimes who eyes the whole continent.

Assongmo Necdem