DStv adds 187,000 subs
November 28, 2012
By Chris Forrester
Naspers, which owns the DStv and Multichoice pay-TV brands, has added 187,000 net new subscribers to its DStv platform in South Africa. The additions take DStv to a total of 4.2 million subscribers in the nation.
This growth was maintained despite a ‘clean up’ of some 32,000 disconnected subscribers.
These numbers helped investment bankers Morgan Stanley suggest to Naspers investors that the company is “well positioned” for 2013 and helped by “stronger margins” in Naspers pay-TV business.
“The underlying trends remain positive with 13 per cent subscriber growth, and 2 per cent uplift in ARPU as a 6 per cent average price increase offset the dilutive impact of 87 per cent of growth deriving from the lower priced Compact package. The regulatory and competitive threat from the delayed DTT rollout is relatively benign, in our view,” said Morgan Stanley.
Personal video recorder (PVR) sales also increased by 90,000, with the cumulative base now at 747,000 households. DStv’s BoxOffice service, which alloows PVR subscribers to rent movies on-demand, reached monthly rentals of 400,000. DStv’s 13 per cent year-on-year increase in subscribers supported a 16 per cent increase in revenue and 19 per cent higher trading profit.