French pay-television giant and new MultiChoice Group owner, Groupe Canal+, plans to focus aggressively on subscriber growth to take advantage of what it has described as the “underpenetrated African pay-TV market”.
The move, outlined in an investor presentation by Canal+ earlier this month, aims to offset MultiChoice’s sinking subscriber numbers, which declined by 1.2 million year on year in the 12 months to end-March 2025.
New data from the presentation, and first reported on by Moneyweb on Monday, suggests this decline accelerated to 1.4 million year on year by 30 June. MultiChoice, which would have reported its interim results in September, will instead report its subscriber numbers in December, aligning its year-end with its new parent company.
Canal+ said it plans to leverage the scale provided by the merged entity to drive a turnaround at MultiChoice.
“[The group will] offset higher subscriber acquisition costs through synergies and a granular focus on optimal distribution. [We will also] enhance the customer value proposition by strengthening the content line-up through sharing content across platforms … [and] set ambitious growth targets and incentivise teams accordingly,” Canal+ said in the presentation.
MultiChoice’s decline in subscribers was accompanied by similar fall in revenue generation and profitability. The Canal+ report showed a R4-billion decline in revenue to R52-billion for the year ended 31 March. Trading profit over the same period plunged 49% to R4-billion.
Technology costs
To attack this, Canal+ plans to “leverage cost-optimisation” initiatives to “reset the cost base” for a more sustainable and profitable pay-TV business. Cost-optimisation efforts were already underway prior to the conclusion the Canal+ takeover, with R3.7-billion in cost savings reported over the last financial year. Canal+ now plans to “deliver meaningful cost synergies” by streamlining technology costs across its global operations.
Read: Board shake-up as French take control of MultiChoice
The importance of technology as an input cost to the operations of pay-TV service providers was highlighted by MultiChoice Group CEO David Mignot in a presentation to the Competition Tribunal prior to the conclusion of the Canal+ takeover. Mignot told the tribunal that although content production costs are an important factor, there is a technology “arms race” in the broadcasting industry that requires significant scale for companies to remain competitive.
Read: MultiChoice is bleeding subscribers
“Technology is another, more hidden factor that is just as key [as content production]. If you take MultiChoice, they had to go to an American company, Comcast, to acquire the technological stack required to provide a new mode of consumption via OTT (over-the-top) services for Showmax,” Mignot told the tribunal at the time.
Subscriber growth in Africa is key to Canal+’s ambition to reach 40 million subscribers globally by the end of the year — which it said it is on track to achieve. The group eventually aims to have between 50 million and 100 million subscribers worldwide, but no date has been communicated for achieving this target. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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