The SVOD juggernaut is rolling through Africa and a new study from Digital TV Research is forecasting subscription video-on-demand revenues will soar from now until 2025 to grow from $183 million to $1.055 billion by 2025.
Attributing reasons for the growth, the Africa OTT TV and Video Forecasts report noted that over the last year, there has been a shift from cheap, local platforms towards the multinational players. This it said has meant higher revenues as their prices are higher than local players, but it also keeps subscriber numbers low. Indeed, subscribers are set to increase from 2.68 million at the end of end 2019 to 9.72 million SVOD subscriptions by 2025.The top six platforms accounted for 86% of the region’s SVOD subscribers by the end of 2019, with this proportion to climb to 94% by 2025. Netflix is likely to add 3.6 million subscribers to total 5 million by 2025. Disney+ is not expected to start until 2022, but will have 1.37 million paying subscribers by 2025.
Showmax is likely to have 1.41 million paying subscribers by 2025 – with many more receiving it for free as part of their premium satellite TV subscription. Significantly, Multichoice has a distribution deal with HBO, which is likely to prevent an HBO Max launch in Africa.
In terms of specific territories, the Africa OTT TV and Video Forecasts report he Africa OTT TV and Video Forecasts report added that South Africa (3.24 million by 2025) is expected remain the subscription leader, with Nigeria (2.14 million) in second place.
