Despite some short-term potential headwinds, there may be a long-term investment case to be made for the pay-television operator. By Renier de Bruyn.
Browsing: DStv
Ahead of its unbundling from parent Naspers and separate listing on the JSE, the bear case for MultiChoice is fairly well understood by the market. The reality, as always, is a lot more nuanced.
The pay-television broadcaster, which will list on the JSE later this month, has revealed all the price adjustments to its DStv bouquets, which will take effect on 1 April 2019.
MultiChoice won’t hike the price of DStv Premium in 2019, reflecting the pressure the pay-television broadcaster is under at the top end of the market.
MultiChoice will carry losses incurred by Showmax in the “medium term”, but the goal is eventually for the streaming television service to turn a profit once broadband infrastructure in South Africa and the rest of the continent has been built out further to support it.
Streaming services pose a significant threat to MultiChoice’s future growth potential, but they are by no means the only risks exercising the minds of the pay-television operator’s management team.
Multichoice Africa Group will list in the “broadcasting and entertainment” sector on the main board of the JSE on 27 February 2019, the pay-TV operator said in a statement after markets closed on Monday.
MultiChoice’s streaming video platform, DStv Now, is now available on Microsoft’s Xbox gaming consoles, the broadcaster said on Monday.
Netflix and other streaming video providers may be a long-term threat to MultiChoice, but the pay-television operator isn’t seeing too much of a challenge just yet, an analysis of the latest financial numbers from parent Naspers suggests.
MultiChoice plans big changes to its video-on-demand offerings, including a radical refresh of the design of DStv Now and new local content for its standalone VOD platform Showmax.