Active subscribers of Pay-TV operator, Multichoice Group, have declined by 18 per cent over a one-year period.
The company stated this in its financial result for the year ended March 31, 2024.
It said the decline in Nigeria affected its overall subscriber database leading to a 9 per cent decline for the year.
Even though it did not give the total subscription figure for Nigeria but lumped it with other operating units outside South Africa tagged as ‘Rest of Africa’ (RoA), the firm noted that the 18 oer cent decline in Nigeria brought the RoA’s total active subscribers down by 13 per cent to 8.1 million from 9.3 million in 2023.
Even though some of the firms subscribers had threatened to dump it following incessant price increases, Multichoice blamed the situation on Nigeria’s harsh economic condition.
“The Nigerian economy and consumers faced persistent challenges through FY24. The removal of fuel subsidies, sharp currency depreciation with the official naira halving in value, inflation climbing to over 30%, and higher emigration of the middle and upper class drove an 18% YoY decline in active subscribers.”
It added that this also reduced Nigeria’s contribution to the RofA revenues from 44 per cent to 35 per cent. It noted, however, that Ghana saw a similar subscriber trend given an inflation rate that is still above 20 per cent.
Multichoice further stated that due to the challenging market dynamics, the short-term focus of its RoA (Nigeria, Angola, Kenya, Ghana, and Zimbabwe) business was shifted from subscriber growth to safeguard profitability and cash flows.
