Canal+ CEO Maxime Saada told analysts on Tuesday that the group could not have produced its half-year numbers without the Fifa World Cup, and that it is too early to call the MultiChoice turnaround a success.
That is a more cautious tone than the results document published earlier in the day, which was headed “MultiChoice turnaround under way”.
Speaking on a results webcast, Saada said Canal+ had delivered a commercially successful tournament, but added: “We would not have been able to deliver these results without the World Cup.”
On the subscriber base, he was even blunter: “As you know, MultiChoice has been losing subscribers, and while the base is broadly flat versus last year, it is too early to say we have achieved the turnaround.”
Later in the presentation, turning to the surge in new customers, he added: “The World Cup is a significant one-off event, and we will need to work hard to retain as many of our new subscribers as we can.”
The reporting period ended on 30 June. The World Cup began on 11 June and ran to the final on 19 July, which means barely three weeks of the tournament fell inside the half Canal+ reported on on Tuesday. The entire knockout phase – and the whole of the retention test that follows it – flows into the second half of the financial year.
Best month in a decade
Canal+ said subscriber acquisition across MultiChoice markets rose 40% year on year, and that June was the best month for new subscriber sign-ups in South Africa in a decade. Bafana Bafana opened the tournament against Mexico on 11 June, which put a South African side on SuperSport in the World Cup’s first fixture, helping boost viewer interest.
Canal+ has bet heavily on live sport to hold the base together, locking in the Premier Soccer League long term and securing the men’s 2027 and women’s 2029 Rugby World Cups across sub-Saharan Africa.
Read: DStv’s subscriber count has gone dark
Tuesday’s results contained no MultiChoice subscriber figure at all. The last number Canal+ published was 14.4 million at the end of 2025, down from 14.9 million a year earlier. Saada said the numbers to June showed the decline in subscribers numbers had been arrested, aided by the football showcase, but that hanging onto those new subscribers will prove the real test in the months ahead. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media
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