This is how popular ShowMax is in South Africa

Yeah, this is absolutely worthless unless we know the subscriber numbers. Considering the service often turns into a pixelated mess during peak hours I'd be surprised if they manage 100k subscribers.

This low price point, and continued development means that the company is is expected to break even in 2021 when it reaches 800,000 subscribers, reports Morgan Stanley.
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It's quite telling if they expect 800k subscribers by 2021.
 
Graal said:
It's quite telling if they expect 800k subscribers by 2021.
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...considering their market, which is South Africa. Most people don't know what proper internet is and, even then, you have tech savvy people who believe a 20GB mobile data bundle is enough for monthly internet use. I actually believe 800k subscribers is a realistic target for an internet streaming service in South Africa. The people who would most likely have the money to pay for this already have a premium DSTV subscription and don't see the value in spending more money to watch shows they already do on TV. You're sitting in a country where probably 10% of the population (roughly 5mil people) can actually afford a streaming service and the hefty price an internet connection to drive it commands.

The other factor that often gets omitted is convenience: with a cable, satellite or similar TV service you're "always on". Just turn on the TV and start watching. You don't need to start up a device, open an app or do anything else. People are also still quite entrenched in their reality- and live TV and sport. I haven't found a single streaming services that combine all of those into an affordable, accessible medium. Let's assume half of the market that can afford it buy into the inconvenience of using such a service and you're hitting a ceiling of 2.5mil people. Lastly, consider the computer literacy and general technical ability of the remaining target market and assume again that you'll only appeal to half of those who can afford it AND are willing to deal with less convenience when watching TV. Suddenly you're at 1.25mil people and a target of 800k subscribers does seem quite reasonable...

For reference: I only have a Netflix sub for the exclusives, when I'm bored and just want to put something in the background, or when visitors and family bring their kids along. I download most of the shows my wife and I watch (long live Bitport.io!). My retired mother-in-law, who lives with us, pays for the premium DSTV sub, as it's all she's used to watching. She understands streaming tech (she loves watching YouTube on the big screen) and can definitely afford a Showmax subscription, but the familiarity of DSTV and not needing to start up an app, site or other device to watch TV keeps her away from streaming services. My parents, who retired fairly wealthy, have an uncapped ADSL account for internet banking and emails. They don't embrace technology and inconvenience at all, as even migrating to a new phone every 2 years is too much of a brain-melt. The same goes for my in-laws... A combination of technology impedance and inconvenience of the service deters them from even considering it.
 
FarligOpptreden said:
...considering their market, which is South Africa. Most people don't know what proper internet is and, even then, you have tech savvy people who believe a 20GB mobile data bundle is enough for monthly internet use. I actually believe 800k subscribers is a realistic target for an internet streaming service in South Africa. The people who would most likely have the money to pay for this already have a premium DSTV subscription and don't see the value in spending more money to watch shows they already do on TV. You're sitting in a country where probably 10% of the population (roughly 5mil people) can actually afford a streaming service and the hefty price an internet connection to drive it commands.

The other factor that often gets omitted is convenience: with a cable, satellite or similar TV service you're "always on". Just turn on the TV and start watching. You don't need to start up a device, open an app or do anything else. People are also still quite entrenched in their reality- and live TV and sport. I haven't found a single streaming services that combine all of those into an affordable, accessible medium. Let's assume half of the market that can afford it buy into the inconvenience of using such a service and you're hitting a ceiling of 2.5mil people. Lastly, consider the computer literacy and general technical ability of the remaining target market and assume again that you'll only appeal to half of those who can afford it AND are willing to deal with less convenience when watching TV. Suddenly you're at 1.25mil people and a target of 800k subscribers does seem quite reasonable...

For reference: I only have a Netflix sub for the exclusives, when I'm bored and just want to put something in the background, or when visitors and family bring their kids along. I download most of the shows my wife and I watch (long live Bitport.io!). My retired mother-in-law, who lives with us, pays for the premium DSTV sub, as it's all she's used to watching. She understands streaming tech (she loves watching YouTube on the big screen) and can definitely afford a Showmax subscription, but the familiarity of DSTV and not needing to start up an app, site or other device to watch TV keeps her away from streaming services. My parents, who retired fairly wealthy, have an uncapped ADSL account for internet banking and emails. They don't embrace technology and inconvenience at all, as even migrating to a new phone every 2 years is too much of a brain-melt. The same goes for my in-laws... A combination of technology impedance and inconvenience of the service deters them from even considering it.
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Very well said. Only reason for me not dropping DSTV is the convenience factor.
 
@Farlig, what you need to keep in mind is that the internet is growing exponentially in SA. In 2009 our internet penetration rate was estimated to be 10%. Between then and now it has grown to a very healthy 49%. it went from a luxury to something that many of us barely think about today. Back in 2009 I was working with a 1gb cap for R149. I'm not on uncapped for R258. Who knows where we'll be in 2021?

Remember, it's well reported that DSTV has been losing subscribers steadily and I wouldn't be surprised if it's because the rise of internet access in South Africa has led to cheaper, more viable ways to get content on demand as opposed to forking over exorbitant subscriptions for services like DSTV. My folks pay something close to R800 (I think) for DSTV and they're always complaining they have nothing to watch.
 
Graal said:
@Farlig, what you need to keep in mind is that the internet is growing exponentially in SA. In 2009 our internet penetration rate was estimated to be 10%. Between then and now it has grown to a very healthy 49%. it went from a luxury to something that many of us barely think about today. Back in 2009 I was working with a 1gb cap for R149. I'm not on uncapped for R258. Who knows where we'll be in 2021?

Remember, it's well reported that DSTV has been losing subscribers steadily and I wouldn't be surprised if it's because the rise of internet access in South Africa has led to cheaper, more viable ways to get content on demand as opposed to forking over exorbitant subscriptions for services like DSTV. My folks pay something close to R800 (I think) for DSTV and they're always complaining they have nothing to watch.
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Even though the country is getting more connected, the reality is that most of those people are relying on mobile broadband, which isn't anything close to affordable for streaming purposes. With Netflix and the like easily eating 1GB bandwidth per hour and most people still sitting with around 20-50GB of bandwidth per month (ask around, you'll be surprised what caps people have), that leaves precious little data for them to "discover" things to watch. They either need to know what they want to watch, or watch nothing at all. So it will only ever be viable for people with uncapped or very large cap connections. Mobile broadband is great to get people informed on news, active on social media and educated on Wikipedia, but it's a terribly expensive channel for entertainment.

I've had this discussion with people before and it always comes down to cost - especially in newer neighbourhoods where there's no fixed-line options available. They compare the R900 for super-ultra-premium DSTV to the cost of mobile data, which is on average R100/GB. That leaves you with 9 hours of TV-time for the month when directly comparing the cost to DSTV... That's hardly even a Saturday's worth of TV for most households in South Africa. Regarding uncapped, you're making the assumption that everyone has access to fixed-line internet, which is definitely not the case. Besides, R258 uncapped is just for your data - add in all the other fixed-line costs and you end up spending around R700 a month just for internet. Add in the cost of Netflix or Showmax (R100+) and you pretty much equal the cost of a premium DSTV subscription. That's where the convenience factor comes in play again...

Ask your folks whether they'd be willing to go through all the hoops of region bypassing, torrenting, seedboxes to keep some form of anonymity, media server setups, smart devices to play everything on, internet disconnections, bandwidth throttling, busy exchanges and the like just to be able to "watch TV". Chances are they'd just stick with DSTV and be contempt with the fact that there's "nothing to watch". To get the same experience as DSTV, you need to find different source of media as a single streaming service only provides you with so much content. News? Different streaming service. Newer shows? Again a different service. Sport? Forget about easily finding that online... Not to mention the fact that most of those services are blocked in South Africa and you need some tech wizardry to get it working, only to have it fail 2 months later and you need to find a new solution. 99% of the people in South Africa aren't inclined to do so.

Incidentally, there's also "nothing to watch" on Showmax and Netflix - they just allow you to "not watch" everything for a couple of seasons back as well. As much as I loved Netflix, I even became a bit bored with the US catalogue, as it was filled with stuff that I had either watched or had no interest in watching at all. The same can be said for services like DSTV, but at least there's more variety showing at any point in time and you kind of just settle for watching anything that's on at the moment to pass some time and eventually latch onto something that you enjoy. That's the problem I have with streaming services - the element of discovery (not the channel, mind you) is missing and you have to specifically "look" for something to watch. More often than not it ends in a form of analysis paralysis with you scouring the library for an hour and just deciding to watch YouTube videos instead.
 
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