High costs prohibiting OTT growth in sub-Saharan Africa

Showmax and Netflix are dominating the sub-Saharan SVOD market, a new report has revealed.

According to Dataxis, Showmax and Netflix are the dominant players in the SVOD market with a market share of 31.6% and 29.7% of subscribers respectively.

Other Western players including Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+ are struggling to get a foothold in the market, while Disney+ is not expected to launch in the region until at least 2022.

The report goes on to note that OTT and SVOD platforms have been growing steadily on the African continent but not as fast as expected. 

Much like in a number of Asian markets, mobile is the main way of accessing the internet but high data costs have negatively impacted the consumption of OTT content. 

Combined with the high cost of internet access, high subscription fees often makes the price of cutting the cord more than a basic Canal+ or DStv pay TV package.

SVOD and OTT players have started to partner with telcos to offer data bundles to African consumers, and this model is helping to increase the number of subscribers. Mobile operator MTN Nigeria has deals in place with Showmax and Netflix.