MultiChoice will shut down Showmax after the platform recorded a R4.9 billion trading loss in the year to March 2025, an 88% deterioration on the prior year, with Canal+ concluding the losses were unsustainable following its $2 billion acquisition of the group last September. No shutdown date has been given, but subscribers have been told service will continue until further notice.
- Showmax launched in 2015 as Africa’s first major subscription video-on-demand platform, relaunched in February 2024 with NBCUniversal’s Peacock technology and a 30% stake from Comcast, and targeted $1 billion in revenue within five years. It never came close.
- Trading losses jumped from R2.6 billion in the year to March 2024 to R4.9 billion in the year to March 2025, dragging MultiChoice Group’s own trading profit down by 49% to R4 billion.
- Canal+ CEO Maxime Saada told investors in January that Showmax was "not a commercial success" and that losses were "not acceptable," signalling the closure weeks before today’s announcement.
- NBCUniversal, which held a 30% stake in the Showmax joint venture, will exit alongside MultiChoice. No retrenchments are planned, with staff to be supported through transition options.
- MultiChoice says it will build an in-house streaming platform and continue investing in premium content. Canal+ is expected to expand its existing Netflix bundle, already active across 24 African countries.
- The core structural problem: Africa has roughly 600 million smartphones but only 4 to 5% of electrified, TV-owning households have fibre access, making the economics of mobile streaming unworkable at the price points a subscription model requires.
Showmax is the most prominent casualty yet of a structural mismatch that has frustrated every premium streaming play on the continent. The platform built genuine strengths: offline downloads ahead of Netflix, adaptive compression for low-bandwidth connections, local payment integration, and a roster of acclaimed South African originals including Spinners, Catch Me a Killer, and The Wife. None of it was enough. The data economics simply do not support a capital-intensive subscription model in a market where most users access the internet through expensive prepaid mobile data. MultiChoice Group CEO David Mignot had already said publicly that Showmax "can’t continue" in its current form. The Canal+ board drew the logical conclusion.
The Bigger Picture: Showmax spent over ZAR 3 billion in investment and still could not build a viable business. That is not a failure of execution, it is a failure of market fit. Africa’s streaming opportunity is real but it is not a Netflix-style subscription play. It is a bundled, mobile-first, advertising-supported model that prices at the marginal cost of data. Any operator who tries to transplant a Western streaming architecture onto African infrastructure will hit the same wall. Canal+ now has the chance to do something more structurally intelligent, whether that means a lighter platform, deeper DStv integration, or doubling down on its Netflix partnership. The lesson for the continent’s media investors is clear: premium content matters, but distribution economics matter more.
Source: TechCentral / Deadline
