Showmax Booms: MultiChoice Reports 44% Customer Growth in Just Over a Year

MultiChoice reported a 44% growth in Showmax customers just over a year after relaunching the video streaming service, despite pulling it from non-African nations.

In its first year, MultiChoice stated that the service worked on improving its content lineup, solidifying distribution relationships, extending payment channel integrations, and refining a go-to-market strategy.

The period was Showmax’s peak investment phase, with an increase in content expenses to attract viewers and platform costs to build capacity.
As a result, Showmax’s trading losses increased by around 88%, from R2.64 billion in the 2024 fiscal year, when the initial development on the service began, to R4.95 billion.

By Gamuchirai Mapako

Showmax 2.0 was launched in February 2025 as a joint venture between MultiChoice and Comcast’s NBC Universal, with the former owning 70% and the latter the other 30%.

The service’s revenues also fell from R1.32 billion to R1.05 billion, owing to higher-than-expected Showmax subscriber turnover and less-than-satisfactory early distribution partnerships. However, MultiChoice said that after accounting for the termination of its Showmax Pro and Showmax Diaspora products, organic revenues increased 5% year on year.

However, the overall picture should look much better in the future, since the platform’s technological costs should fall drastically.
MultiChoice stated that, while Showmax 2.0 fell short of its early growth expectations, it nonetheless generated good growth in active paying subscribers and won market share in the regional streaming market.

“Although the current levels of broadband and subscription video-on-demand penetration across Africa are not yet at comparable levels to the rest of the world, they suggest significant long-term upside.”

However, MultiChoice said that Internet data pricing would need to evolve further for this market segment to reach its full potential.

“Aside from data costs, macro-economic challenges in markets like Nigeria have impacted short-term pricing and MultiChoice Group,” the company said.