DStv owners continueto lose millions

Multichoice, which owns DStv, has lost over 2.8 million subscribers over the last two years and billions in revenue.

The group’s latest annual report for the year ended 31 March 2025 attributes the declines to operating challenges which the group says became worse in 2025.

Named among the challenges is currency depreciation and liquidity disruption, competition, negative macro-economic factors and piracy.

MultiChoice says there is an increasing availability of illegal content from pirate websites, pirate services and social media feeds.

“The illegal retransmission and piracy of content, including illegal connections, file sharing, illegal internet streaming of sport content and the piracy of local content, remain critical and growing risks to the business,” reads the report

Additionally, the proliferation of social media platforms and short-form video content on platforms such as TikTok has made the situation worse.

Despite cost-cutting initiatives, MultiChoice reports that trading profit declined.

“Reported trading profit decreased by 49% to R4 billion on the back of foreign exchange losses of R3 billion, weaker linear subscriber activity and the higher full-year run-rate operating costs of Showmax,” says the report.

Even the group’s streaming platform, Showmax, performed poorly, reporting a trading loss of R4.9 billion in the 2025 financial year, up from R2.6 billion the year before.

“The ongoing investment in the Showmax streaming business, which remains at an early stage of development and has yet to scale into its cost base, is expected to result in the group reporting a lower trading profit,” reads the report.

The group adds that on an organic basis (excluding the effects of foreign currency and group composition changes), the decline in trading profit is expected to be much smaller.

The saver of the group came through a sale of 60% of its microinsurance business, NMS Insurance Services, to Sanlam.

The insurance arm of MultiChoice has been in existence for over 20 years and brought in about N$3 billion profit after the sale.

This saved the company from solvency as its 2024 results showed that it had more liabilities than assets.

“The group returned to a positive equity position during the current year, despite a challenging operating environment,” MultiChoice says in its 2025 annual report.

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