Naspers’s fledgling video-on-demand (VOD) platform, ShowMax, will be expanded to three new continents in the coming year, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
The news wire cited an unnamed source as saying that the company is targeting more than 15m customers outside of South Africa, where the service was launched earlier this year, and is eyeing launches in markets across Europe, North America and Australasia.
The move could bring it into direct conflict with America’s Netflix, the world’s biggest VOD company, which is expanding to more than 200 markets around the world in the next year, including South Africa.
Naspers, which owns pay-television operator MultiChoice, launched ShowMax in August as a separate business unit.
ShowMax is also said to be planning expansion elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.
The service costs R99/month in South Africa and offers users a seven-day free trial period. It provides a range of local and international TV series, movies and other content, all delivered over broadband.
A number of other VOD providers have launched in South Africa in the past 18 months, including Times Media Group’s Vidi, MTN’s FrontRow and PCCW Global’s ONTAPtv.com. — (c) 2015 NewsCentral Media
