Another year, another decline in DStv subscribers: Will Canal+ be buying a shell?
'Over this period, the group lost 2.8 million active linear subscribers and had to absorb a R10.2bn negative impact on its topline due to local currency depreciation against the US dollar.'
Multichoice Group, parent company to DStv, has recorded another year of decline in subscribers. The announcement of another decline comes weeks after the Competition Commission approved the acquisition of the streaming company by French Media giant Canal+.
At the rate the streaming network is losing subscribers, Canal+ might find itself buying a shell.
Multichoice released its financial results for the year ended March 2025 on Wednesday, which revealed DStv lost subscribers, but not as many as the previous financial year.
DStv struggles
The streaming network stated that the past two financial years have been a period of significant financial disruption for economies, corporations, and consumers across sub-Saharan Africa, due to challenging macroeconomic factors.
The macroeconomic factors were combined with the impact of structural industry changes in the video entertainment sector, including the rise of piracy, the emergence of streaming services, and the growth of social media.
'Over this period, the group lost 2.8 million active linear subscribers and had to absorb a R10.2bn negative impact on its topline due to local currency depreciation against the US dollar.'
ALSO READ: MultiChoice profit nosedives with huge decline in subscribers
Showmax not helping DStv
Revenue declined by 9% to R50.8 billion, primarily due to an 11% drop in subscription revenue, and trading profit decreased to R4.0 billion.
To address the decline in DStv subscribers, MultiChoice invested in Showmax, its online streaming platform. However, this strategy has not yielded any success.
The Group said that Showmax's active paying customers increased by 44%. Despite this increase, its revenue still declined from R1.3 billion to R1.0 billion.
Showmax's trading loss increased from R2.6 billion to R4.9 billion, highlighting the platform's accelerating financial losses.
The future of MultiChoice
'Our performance reflects both the challenges we've faced and the resilience of our teams. While macroeconomic pressures and currency volatility have weighed on our results, our disciplined execution, cost management and investment in new long-term growth opportunities position us well for the future,' said Calvo Mawela, MultiChoice Group CEO.
MultiChoice's outlook includes:
Stabilising the topline in the video businesses through focused retention initiatives, while supporting rapid topline growth in the group's interactive entertainment, fintech and insurance investees,
Continuing to drive operating, cost and working capital efficiencies into the group to protect profitability and cash flows,
Continuing to work with Canal+ towards a successful close of their mandatory offer, unlocking significant long-term benefits for the combined entities and their respective stakeholders.
NOW READ: Competition Commission greenlights MultiChoice and Canal+ deal
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
eNCA
2 days ago
- eNCA
China's top diplomat to visit EU, Germany, France next week
China's top diplomat Wang Yi will head to Europe next week for talks with counterparts from the European Union, Germany and France, Beijing said on Friday as it seeks to shore up fraught ties with the bloc. Beijing has sought to improve relations with Europe as a counterweight to superpower rival United States, though frictions remain over trade and China's close ties with Russia despite its war in Ukraine. China and the European Union will also host a summit next month marking 50 years since Beijing and Brussels established diplomatic ties. Wang's trip will take him to Brussels, France and Germany and last from next Monday to Sunday, Beijing said. "The world is undergoing an accelerated evolution of a century-old change, with unilateralism, protectionism and bullying behaviour becoming rampant," foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said -- a thinly-veiled swipe against the United States under President Donald Trump. China's top diplomat will meet with EU counterpart Kaja Kallas at the bloc's headquarters in Brussels for "high-level strategic dialogue", he said. In Germany he will hold talks with Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on diplomacy and security -- his first visit since Berlin's new conservative-led government took power in May. China looks forward to "strengthening strategic communication, enhancing pragmatic cooperation, and promoting new developments of the China-Germany comprehensive strategic partnership," Guo said. Ties between Berlin and Beijing, he added, were "injecting certainty, stability, and positive energy into a turbulent world". In France, Wang will meet minister for Europe and foreign affairs Jean-Noel Barrot, who visited China in March. "Foreign Minister Wang Yi will exchange views with the French side on the international situation, China-France ties and China-Europe relations," Guo said. And in Brussels Wang will also hold talks with Belgium's Prime Minister Bart De Wever and Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot, Beijing said. - Trade spat - Ties between Europe and China have strained in recent years as the bloc seeks to get tougher on what it says are unfair economic practices by Beijing and the yawning trade imbalance between them. After the European Union placed tariffs on Chinese EV imports, China retaliated with its own duties, including on French cognac. An agreement on cognac has been reached with Beijing but not yet formally approved by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, a source in the French Economy Ministry told AFP. The source said finalization was partially linked with the EU's ongoing negotiations over electric vehicles. Tensions mounted last week after the European Union banned Chinese firms from government medical device purchases worth more than five million euros ($5.8 million), in retaliation for limits Beijing places on access to its own market. The latest salvo in trade tensions between the 27-nation bloc and China covered a wide range of healthcare supplies, from surgical masks to X-ray machines, that represent a market worth 150 billion euros ($176 billion) in the EU. In response, China accused the EU of "double standards". Another tricky point has been rare earths. Beijing has since April required licences to export these strategic materials from China, which accounts for more than 60 percent of rare earth mining production and 92 percent of global refined output, according to the International Energy Agency. The metals are used in a wide variety of products, including electric car batteries, and there has been criticism from industries about the way China's licences have been issued. China has proposed establishing a "green channel" to ease the export of rare earths to the European Union, its commerce ministry said this month. By Mary Yang
TimesLIVE
5 days ago
- TimesLIVE
France orders extra 800,000 cars off the road over Takata airbag scandal
France is ordering an extra 800,000 cars with Takata airbags to be taken off the road, two weeks after a woman died in the northeastern town of Reims from injuries related to a faulty airbag. The move is the latest twist in the auto industry's biggest-ever product recall, eight years after the company at the centre of the crisis — Japan's Takata Corp — filed for bankruptcy protection in the US and Japan. After her 2014 Citroën C3 was hit by a truck, the woman in Reims died when she was struck by a metal piece expelled by an airbag ejected from her car, the Reims prosecutor's office said. Citing the incident, French transport minister Philippe Tabarot said on Tuesday that all cars with the technology should be recalled, no matter how old they were. He also ordered all manufacturers to tell drivers in Corsica and other overseas departments to stop driving vehicles with the Takata airbags, whatever their production year, until they are repaired, and issued the same order for all cars with such equipment produced until 2011 in mainland France. The government had previously said vehicles built between 1998 and 2019, from 30 brands, could potentially be recalled. According to a ministry estimate based on carmaker data, the expanded recall will bring the total to 2.5-million. Within that total, the ministry has doubled the number of compulsory recalls — so-called 'stop drive' orders — to 1.7-million. French government spokesperson Sophie Primas said on Wednesday the expanded recall was being undertaken 'out of an abundance of caution'. Takata, which was mainly acquired by a Chinese-owned, US-based company, said at the time of its bankruptcy filing that it had recalled or expected to recall about 125-million vehicles worldwide by 2019.
IOL News
5 days ago
- IOL News
Inside Sea Point's Ritz Hotel: Big hopes, shattered dreams and no sale . . . yet, but almost
Security guard Asive Kantyi escorts us through the dilapidated corridors. The Ritz Hotel is up for sale. This derelict Sea Point landmark has turned from icon, to eyesore in recent years. Since the pandemic, illegal occupiers had settled in the top few floors of the once-luxury hotel with breathtaking vistas. Today the hotel is empty. But the Revolving Restaurant and the hotel may still get its turn again. Located on the popular Atlantic Seaboard, the Ritz Hotel Cape Town is on the brink of being sold for about 300 million. Image: Armand Hough/ Independent Newspapers A matric certificate lies in a pile of other materials in a room in the condemned Ritz Hotel in Sea Point. In another corner is a fire fighter certificate. Under an old duvet cover is a job rejection letter. During Covid the once glamourous Ritz Hotel was taken over by hijackers, alleged prostitutes, drug dealers and... an 88-year-old woman who walked 17 flights of steps a day to go to 'her' abandoned room in the building. A bulding, that even without water and electricity, completely rundown, and with almost no maintenance over the years, still boasts the best views in the city. It's no wonder then that there is an offer of close to R300 million on the table for it by a foreign hotel consortium - not Dutch, not Spanish, not French, not even from Europe, as has been widely reported. They have almost signed the deal, says Bruce Hendricks, MD of Hendricks Harmse Attorneys, one of the representatives of the owners and whose company is managing the Ritz Hotel building. It could be a done deal by Friday, he says. Or not. "Let's say it is about 80% there." The present owners - the Hurwitz and Roffey families - have been in no rush to sell the building. In one of the biggest evictions - Hendricks and his team were able to get the hijackers out of the building in 2022 leaving the place ready for a new owner - and bringing down the crime level in that end of Sea Point substantially, say some. Not quite a soft launch: a walk through The Ritz. Image: Armand Hough/Independent Newspapers He says while there has been a lot of interest to buy the building over the years, the present contenders have been the most serious. Rising higher than most buildings in the hood - at 23 storeys - a walkabout inside yesterday revealed shattered dreams with glimmers of hope of a restoration to awaken its former glory days. Views from top of the Ritz Hotel Cape Town. Image: Armand Hough / Independent Newspapers You can't use the lift, so be prepared to climb 23 flights of stairs to be able to view the once glam revolving restuarant at the top. And you had best watch your step, even some of the marble stairs at the grand entrance hall are broken. The floors are strewn with bird feathers with some water puddles. Wallpaper with a quote from Nelson Mandela - who stayed at The Ritz after his release from Victor Verster Prison in 1990 - is half crumpled. "i walked out the door that led to my freedom... " The hotel has some legendary stories around it. Yet, even in its eeriness - dark passageways, concrete steps up 23 flights - you still gasp when you enter the once revolving restaurant on the highest floor: the views stretch across every angle of Sea Point. "I get many letters from people with stories about the hotel," says Hendricks. One man said he was conceived at the hotel, another recalls proposing at the restuarant. On social media old Sea Pointers have been reminiscing. It's an estate agents dream: Sweeping 360 views, conference facilities, a pool area, a restaurant... of course, it will be once it revamped. However the building lacks balconies, and while some windows are broken, we heard because of strong winds, some of the windows were made not to open. Like the Titanic of Sea Point - except not underground - tables and blue chairs are placed as though ready for business in the restuarant. On the floor lies an old invitation for a soft launch still in the time when Nicky van der Walt and his company had big dreams and a R120-million revamp in its pocket. Before the Cape Town High Court ordered Van de Walt and his company to vacate the building in July 2018, effectively halting the reopening. Inside the Ritz. Image: Vivian Warby
