Naspers Ltd. is considering the sale of its pay-TV business in Africa as sluggish economic expansion in key markets stifles growth and viewers switch to cheaper online alternatives, according to two people familiar with the matter.
A disposal of Multichoice won’t include the South African division, which is still highly profitable, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the plans haven’t been made public. A sale is one of a number of options being considered by Africa’s biggest company by market value, and a final decision hasn’t been reached, one of the people said.
Naspers and MTN Group Ltd., Africa’s largest wireless operator, have briefly discussed a deal for Multichoice Africa, but no agreement was reached, according to one of the people. Both companies confirmed on Thursday that they are still in talks that were disclosed earlier about sharing TV content. MyBroadband, a South African internet news site, reported earlier that MTN was in talks to buy MultiChoice Africa, citing unidentified people.
A sale of Multichoice Africa would represent a further shift by Cape Town-based Naspers away from its traditional media business, which includes newspapers and Multichoice’s main product, the DSTV satellite-TV service. Since winning big with a 2001 investment in Chinese technology company Tencent Holdings Ltd., a stake that’s now worth about $107 billion, Naspers has become a serial investor in internet companies around the world, ranging from an online travel agency in India to education software providers in Silicon Valley.
Profit Slump
The value of the Tencent stake is worth more than Naspers’s market value of 1.2 trillion rand ($89 billion), which partly reflects the weak performance of the TV division. While the company arrested a decline in subscriber numbers over the six months through September, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization at the unit declined 33 percent to $331 million.
As Naspers charges customers in local currencies, “the continued weakness of currencies and economies in many African countries resulted in lower U.S. dollar revenues,” the company said in its November results presentation.
Nigeria’s economy contracted for the first time in 25 years in 2016 and its currency has depreciated by 37 percent against the dollar over the past 12 months. Sub-Saharan African economies grew by an average of 1.4 percent last year, compared with 3.4 percent in 2015, according to the International Monetary Fund.
© 2017 Bloomberg L.P

https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/companies-and-deals/naspers-said-to-consider-sale-of-multichoice-africa/

What are the implications of this on the continent entertainment industry. That would mean all channels will split, will there be Nigerian Mtvbase, no supersport, no cross border entertainment. Of course nigerian music and nollywood will suffer. Apparently the rest of Africa is not making profit due to the economic downturn, only South africa is the one making profit.

Some might have thought Nigeria had the biggest subscribers in Africa, which was wrong, as it stands, South Africa has 6 million subscribers compared to Nigeria's 1.6 million subscribers. Hence naspers is keeping the lucrative SA multichoice.

what do you think?

I think dstv should leave Nigeria asap

to give way to new Nigerian pay TV that is going to be lunched July 2017

its called pipuls TV
and this one is different it won't die like the others who have tried to rival with dstv

this one has lots of HD channels
it has signed a contract with one of the local leagues plus plus full coverage of the EPL which is the main reason Nigerians use dstv I say the end is near recently the npfl cut ties with super sports


who knows what they have in mind ?

PROVERBZ:
I think dstv should leave Nigeria asap

to give way to new Nigerian pay TV that is going to be lunched July 2017

its called pipuls TV
and this one is different it won't die like the others who have tried to rival with dstv

this one has lots of HD channels
it has signed a contract with one of the local leagues plus plus full coverage of the EPL which is the main reason Nigerians use dstv I say the end is near recently the npfl cut ties with super sports


who knows what they have in mind ?

Thats what they are doing, moving out of nigeria. thats what nigerians have been waiting for. So now lets see whether a nigerian company can pull it off.

Just for correction, its not NFF that cut ties with Supersport, it was the other way round, after NFF broke the contract clous, that says, you donot negitiate contract with the competition, while nff was busy negotiating with Kwesi TV, which is own by zimbabwean clive musiyewa. The same was done in Ghana and kenya.

Many people think AFRICA has a lucrative satelite TV market, which is wrong. The subscription is very poor, many african countries cant have satelite tv by themselves, they can afford it. South africa alone carry the whole continent in paying for thise channels, hence multichoice is pulling out, because they are running on a loss. The profit they make in South africa, is taken out to go and run services through out africa.

Just to give you a hint regarding subscription, botswana has only 100 000 subscribers, kenya also has 100 000, rwanda 80 000 and the rest have below 50 000. you cannot run a satelite tv with a subscription of 100 000. How are you gonna for the channels. Supersport pays $100m for the EPL rights for only 3yrs. and thats not the only channels they need to pay more for, there is other 70 channels. so you need $1bn a year to run a successful satelite tv. If you are making $600m and you need to spend $1bn, that means every year you will be shot of $400m, you need to go to borrow.

14:


Thats what they are doing, moving out of nigeria. thats what nigerians have been waiting for. So now lets see whether a nigerian company can pull it off.

Just for correction, its not NFF that cut ties with Supersport, it was the other way round, after NFF broke the contract clous, that says, you donot negitiate contract with the competition, while nff was busy negotiating with Kwesi TV, which is own by zimbabwean clive musiyewa. The same was done in Ghana and kenya.

Many people think AFRICA has a lucrative satelite TV market, which is wrong. The subscription is very poor, many african countries cant have satelite tv by themselves, they can afford it. South africa alone carry the whole continent in paying for thise channels, hence multichoice is pulling out, because they are running on a loss. The profit they make in South africa, is taken out to go and run services through out africa.

Just to give you a hint regarding subscription, botswana has only 100 000 subscribers, kenya also has 100 000, rwanda 80 000 and the rest have below 50 000. you cannot run a satelite tv with a subscription of 100 000. How are you gonna for the channels. Supersport pays $100m for the EPL rights for only 3yrs. and thats not the only channels they need to pay more for, there is other 70 channels. so you need $1bn a year to run a successful satelite tv. If you are making $600m and you need to spend $1bn, that means every year you will be shot of $400m, you need to go to borrow.

correction NFF HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS

IT IS ACTUALLY THE LMC HU ARE IN CHARGE OF THE NFPL

NO 2 THEY WERE NEVER IN TALKS KWESE SPORTS


NO3 I AM WILLING TO GIVE THEM ALL TRANSPORT MONEY ,MTN DSTV AND THE REST THEY CAN ALL LEAVE As QUICKLY AS possible

DSTV are you tired? You want to run?

PROVERBZ:
I think dstv should leave Nigeria asap

to give way to new Nigerian pay TV that is going to be lunched July 2017

its called pipuls TV
and this one is different it won't die like the others who have tried to rival with dstv

this one has lots of HD channels
it has signed a contract with one of the local leagues plus plus full coverage of the EPL which is the main reason Nigerians use dstv I say the end is near recently the npfl cut ties with super sports


who knows what they have in mind ?

For the English league I doubt that because multi choice wouldn't let it be.don't forget this pay tv still exhibit same behavioural trait like multi choice if peradventure they succeed in getting the broadcast license to air Epl

asuustrike2009:

For the English league I doubt that because multi choice wouldn't let it be.don't forget this pay tv still exhibit same behavioural trait like multi choice if peradventure they succeed in getting the broadcast license to air Epl

they are not bidding to get broadcast rights for the premier ship

the decoder actually features sky sports channels and they have the broadcast rights to the premier ship already