Africa set to add 10MN SVOD customers by 2029
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Editor
| 14 August 2023
Bucking a trend that has been seen for some time in the US, the African subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) market is, says a study from Digital TV Research, set to see “plenty” of growth in the coming years, with18 million paying customers subscriptions by 2029.
Showmax UK 6March2023
The Africa OTT TV and Video Forecasts report showed that this would represent marked growth from the 8 million projected for the end of 2023. Yet despite what would be fast growth, the regional SVOD penetration will remain low, with only 7.7% of African TV households paying for at least one subscription by 2029.

Digital TV Research added that the African SVOD market would show very marked individual and language-based characteristics. It noted that the SVOD sector in Anglophone Africa is evolving into a battle between Netflix and local player Showmax. The analyst regards the latter as rich in local content and sports rights, and that itr now has access to NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures and HBO content.

In all, the survey projected Netflix to have 7.55 million subscribers by 2029; adding 3.4 million from end-2023. Second-placed Showmax will have 4.40 million paying subscribers by 2029; nearly 3 million more than 2023.