African pay-television giant, Multichoice Group has said that its Nigerian subsidiary lost 243,000 subscribers on its DSTV and GOtv platforms between April and September 2024.
This was contained in the company’s financial report for the year ending September 30, 2024, released Tuesday, November 12, 2024.
According to the report, the drop is attributed to the escalating costs of essentials like food, electricity, and petrol, which have led many Nigerians to cancel their subscriptions.
Multichoice highlighted that Nigeria and Zambia saw the highest subscriber losses across its operations.
Overall, the company reported a decline of 566,000 subscribers in its Rest of Africa (RoA) market during the six-month period continuing a trend from the previous year.
“The group’s linear subscriber base declined by 11% or 1.8m subscribers YoY to 14.9 million active subscribers by 30 September 2024,” MultiChoice said.
“The loss in the Rest of Africa has been primarily due to the significant consumer pressure in Nigeria, where inflation has remained above 30% for the majority of the last 12 months and, more recently, due to extreme power disruptions in Zambia.
“Of this decline, 298k related to Zambia and 243k related to Nigeria, with remaining markets on the continent reflecting only a minor decline of 25k,” Multichoice added.
On the foreign exchange (FX) rate, the company said the continued naira depreciation against the dollar has resulted in further losses on non-quasi-equity loans.
“The group held USD 11 million in cash in Nigeria at period-end, down from USD 39 million at end FY24, a consequence of the consistent focus on remitting cash, the impact of translating the balance at the weaker naira and the write-off of the USD 21 million receivable relating to the cash held with Heritage Bank before its license was revoked and the bank was liquidated,” the company said.
Commenting on the company’s results, Calvo Mawela, MultiChoice group chief executive officer (CEO) said the company has been facing its most challenging operating conditions for almost 40 years.
To generate returns, Mr Mawela said the company has been “proactive in its focus to right-size the business for the current economic realities and industry changes”.
He said while operating across Africa “typically subjects the group to currency moves, abnormal currency weakness over the past 18 months has reduced the group’s profits by close to R7 billion”.
“Combined with the impact of a weak macro environment on consumers’ disposable income and therefore on subscriber growth, it required the Group to fundamentally adjust its cost base – which is exactly what has been done.
“We are making good progress in addressing the technical insolvency that resulted from non-cash accounting entries at the end of the last financial year,” he said.
