DStv operator, MultiChoice, has lost 2.8 million subscribers since its height on 31 March 2023, declining from 17.3 million to 14.5 million, a reduction of over 16% in two years.

MultiChoice’s new owner, French media conglomerate Groupe Canal+, recently published an investor presentation with charts illustrating MultiChoice’s decline in recent years.

The publication showed that MultiChoice was not only declining in subscriber numbers but also in other key metrics, such as revenue and trading profit.

MultiChoice’s decline has been evident in South Africa since 2016, when the company started losing its highest-value DStv Premium subscribers.

That was the same year as Netflix’s global expansion. The company announced the global rollout of its services in January 2016 at CES.

South Africa’s pay-TV giant was able to mask this decline through gains on its lower-tier packages and growth in the rest of Africa.

When MultiChoice was spun out of Naspers in 2019, it started bundling Compact Plus subscribers in with DStv Premium, in a new “Premium market segment” category.

This hid the decline of DStv Premium for a year before this new combined category also started recording lower numbers. In other words, by 2021, DStv Compact Plus was also in decline.

MultiChoice also switched to reporting subscribers according to a 90-day active metric rather than the number of subscribers at 31 March and 30 September.

Its year-end subscribers went into decline in 2022 in South Africa, but the new 90-day active metric allowed MultiChoice to continue reporting subscriber growth in South Africa until its 2023 financial year.

Subscriber growth in the rest of Africa also took a turn in 2023, with MultiChoice’s results across the group showing substantial subscriber declines in 2024 and 2025.

These declines were evident in both the traditional year-end and 90-day active subscriber numbers reported by MultiChoice.

Macroeconomic headwinds

In its last published financial results for the year ended 31 March 2025, before Canal+’s final takeover, MultiChoice blamed macroeconomic factors for its continued decline.

“The past two financial years have been a period of significant financial disruption for economies, corporates and consumers across sub-Saharan Africa due to challenging macroeconomic factors,” it stated.

“Combined with the impact of structural industry changes in video entertainment such as the rise of piracy, streaming services and social media, this has materially affected the overall performance of the MultiChoice Group.”

Aside from losing 2.8 million traditional linear TV subscribers, MultiChoice said it had to absorb a R10.2 billion negative impact on its topline due to local currency depreciation against the US dollar.

“Management acted decisively to ensure that the group could withstand these headwinds, focusing on key areas within its control,” it said.

“This has meant maintaining a discipline of inflationary pricing, with price increases of ~5.7% in South Africa in FY25 (FY24: 5.6%) and an average of 31% in local currency in Rest of Africa (FY24: 27%).”

MultiChoice said this enabled it to offset subscriber volume pressures and deliver 1% year-on-year organic revenue growth in the current financial year.

“In addition, further efficiencies were implemented to manage costs and cash flows without unduly sacrificing the group’s customer value proposition,” it said.

“In this regard, the group delivered R3.7 billion in cost savings, well ahead of management’s initial R2.0-billion target, and the revised R2.5 billion target set at its half-year results.”

Despite these cost savings, MultiChoice reported that organic trading profit declined by 9% year-on-year across the group due to the increased operating costs in Showmax in its peak investment year.

MultiChoice performance metrics in Canal+ investor presentation published on 21 November 2025

Canal+’s plan for a MultiChoice turnaround

In an investor presentation published on 21 November, Canal+ said that it has plans to return MultiChoice to growth through several key interventions.

Canal+ said it would reinvest in subscriber acquisition to capture growth opportunity in the underpenetrated African pay-TV market.

It will offset higher subscriber acquisition costs through synergies and a granular focus on optimal distribution.

Canal+ said it would set ambitious growth targets and incentivise teams accordingly, applying a “no small market” philosophy for the continent.

This means Canal+ will not view any market on the African continent as too small to invest in for future growth.

Besides driving subscriber acquisition to increase revenue, Canal+ stated that it would develop and implement plans to generate meaningful incremental revenues and revenue synergies across the business.

Additionally, Canal+ said it would enhance MultiChoice’s customer value proposition. It will strengthen the content line-up by sharing material across platforms and apply marketing best practices.

Canal+ also said it would address the cost side of the business. It plans to reset the cost base for a sustainable and profitable pay-TV business, in contrast with past cost savings plans aimed solely at short-term profitability.

It stated that it would deliver meaningful cost synergies, with an initial focus on content and technology costs, especially large cost items at a global scale. (MyBroadband, but headline rejigged)