MultiChoice facing most challenging operating conditions in almost 40 years – CEO

South African Pay-TV operator, MultiChoice Group CEO, Calvo Mawela, has revealed that the company is facing its most challenging operating conditions in almost 40 years.

Mawela disclosed this after Multichoice Nigeria lost no fewer than 243,000 subscribers across its DStv and GOtv services in the six months covering April to September this year due to the economy.

According to the company’s Interim Financial Results for the six months ended 30 September 2024, which was released on Tuesday, the increase in Nigeria’s inflation rate at over 30% driven by the high cost of food, electricity, and fuel forced many of its customers to put away their decoders.

“Combined with the impact of a weak macro environment on consumers’ disposable income and therefore on subscriber growth, it required the Group to fundamentally adjust its cost base – which is exactly what has been done,” Mawela said.

“We are making good progress in addressing the technical insolvency that resulted from non-cash accounting entries at the end of the last financial year.

“We expect to return to a positive net equity position by the end of November this year, supported by a number of developments and initiatives. The Group’s liquidity position remains strong, with over ZAR10bn in total available funds.”

While the company did not reveal the actual figure in its financial report for the year ended March 2024, Multichoice had also declared the loss of 18% of its Nigerian subscribers.

The group added that the pressure on its subscriber base in Rest of Africa Operations continued from the previous year, accounting for a loss of 566,000 subscribers across the operations in the six months under review.

While it noted that the subscribers it lost in the last six months was a decline compared with the 803,000 it lost in the previous six months, Multichoice revealed that two markets, Zambia and Nigeria accounted for the lion’s share of the loss.

“With the Rest of Africa business having seen a decline of 803k subscribers in 2H FY24, this rate of decline slowed to 566k in 1H FY25.

“Of this decline, 298k related to Zambia and 243k related to Nigeria, with remaining markets on the continent reflecting only a minor decline of 25k,” the company stated in its financial results.