MultiChoice has big ambitions for its Showmax 2.0 relaunch

This week, MultiChoice-owned streaming platform Showmax unveiled the content slate for the revamped version of “Showmax 2.0”.

Due to launch in February, Showmax will feature 1,300 hours of original African content and the continent’s first standalone Premier League mobile streaming plan. With the relaunch, Showmax will build on the current momentum, which has seen it eclipse Netflix as the continent’s leading platform. The success of Showmax 2.0 will also bode well for parent company MultiChoice, which has been fighting off a plummeting share price, investment write-downs, market exits and the decline in subscribers of its bread-and-better service DStv.

The pan-African broadcaster has invested heavily in Showmax 2.0. Announcing its end-of-year financial results in March 2023, MultiChoice stated that it would withhold dividends from shareholders to pour cash into the Showmax relaunch. The company also announced a further R500 million (~$27 million) investment into the relaunch in November 2023.

“With subscriptions falling flat on their main offering (DSTV), streaming has picked up for them and everyone else,” Jimmy Moyaha, a Johannesburg-based markets analyst, told TechCabal. “Consumer demand for affordable, quality services will play a key role in the business’s success.”

MultiChoice putting all eggs into Showmax

MultiChoice has publicly stated its ambitious goals for the streaming service. It wants to make Showmax the biggest streaming platform on the continent, forecasting $1 billion in revenue in five years. Multichoice aims to have 50 million Showmax subscribers in the next five years, a 3,700% increase from its current 1.8 million subscriber count.

Showmax still has a long way to go before it can translate the subscriber growth momentum into positive bottom-line figures. According to the market analysis publication Daily Investor, although Showmax had revenues in the region of R500 million (~$27 million) in the first six months of MultiChoice’s 2024 financial year, between November 2022 and November 2023, the service recorded a net loss of R1.41 billion (~$75 million), translating to a net loss margin of 144%.

“Consumer demand for affordable, quality services is going to play a key role in the success of the Showmax” said Moyaha.