[HN Gopher] Showmax has displaced Netflix in Africa
___________________________________________________________________
Showmax has displaced Netflix in Africa
Author : eatonphil
Score : 107 points
Date : 2024-02-16 13:57 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (restofworld.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (restofworld.org)
| alephnerd wrote:
| Makes sense.
|
| Localization is fairly important for most markets and until
| recently Netflix has been dropping the ball on that outside of NA
| and Europe.
|
| It's starting to change (eg. Netflix KDrama growth, revamping
| Netflix India, acquiring Arabic and Nollywood content, etc) but
| it will take time and the content pushed tends to still be
| western Netflix content.
| redder23 wrote:
| Great name for a website.
| jacknews wrote:
| Am I the only one who misread the title?
| tekla wrote:
| Yes
| tln wrote:
| 2.1M subscribers, thats a tiny fraction of Africa's 1.2B people.
| I'd imagine demand is pretty elastic -- it'd be nice if the
| article had specifics on prices.
|
| By comparison Netflix has 67M subscribers out of 330M people in
| US (130M households).
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I would think you have to compare Netflix's numbers in Africa,
| since the context of the claim is the African market.
| SushiHippie wrote:
| TFA mentions that Netflix has 1.8 million subscribers, so 2.1
| million already sounds like a lot.
|
| > Showmax -- which was spun out of Africa's largest
| entertainment company, MultiChoice, in 2015 -- had 2.1
| million subscribers on the continent at the end of November
| 2023, as compared to 1.8 million for Netflix, according to
| market research firm Omdia.
|
| And there are only 500 million internet users in africa.
|
| https://www.statista.com/topics/9813/internet-usage-in-
| afric...
| ryanjshaw wrote:
| In South Africa: standard plan is 2x1080p streams at R89/mo, or
| 1.7x big Macs, or 3.5hrs minimum wage. There's a mobile plan
| for 39/mo. Equivalent Netflix Standard is R159/mo.
|
| The old app wasn't great. The reason why is simple: I remember
| a recruiter reaching out to me at the time MultiChoice were
| starting off with their streaming apps and they were offering
| market rates for a senior developer - strange choice when
| building the foundation for a continent-wide business.
|
| The new app is a high quality Netflix look-a-like, perhaps
| leveraging skills from the Comcast deal.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > households
|
| I wonder what metric applies, people or households. If most
| people watch streaming on their devices, it would be people. If
| they want on the family tv, if that's a thing, then households.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| My ideal future would be tech companies all over the world
| providing better service by actually _being in the country they
| 're serving,_ knowing it's culture, sensibilities and tastes. The
| monoliths we have now don't serve customers well anywhere, but
| especially in markets they don't perceive as valuable enough.
| andsoitis wrote:
| All the big tech companies have offices and staff in and/or
| from all over the world.
| burnerburnson wrote:
| If the streaming service isn't even popular enough to refer to it
| by name, it has not dethroned Netflix.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Showmax has displaced Netflix to become the most popular
| streaming platform _in Africa_
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _isn 't even popular enough to refer to it by name,_
|
| The page title is "How _Showmax_ , an African streaming
| service, dethroned Netflix", and the name of the service is
| also the very first word of the subtitle on the page. It is
| also referred to by name several other times throughout the
| article.
|
| > _it has not dethroned Netflix_
|
| If you go by subscriber count, which is a bit more robust than
| your criteria, it has.
| geodel wrote:
| So this company is owned by largest South African cable network
| and has extensive partnership with Comcast and HBO. Further
| adjusting purchasing power of local consumers and ton of local
| content they'd have acquired over decades I am not sure what is
| expected.
|
| To me takeaway it is impressive that Netflix still has more that
| 30% of marketshare.
|
| I see same thing in India where *analysts and experts on twitter
| opine how Netflix has totally failed in India due to lack of
| local content and poor execution. Instead of accepting that for
| >90% of population Netflix is just too expensive and there is no
| way to run profitable business, they dream Netflix can charge a
| dollar and show 10 new local blockbuster movies every month.
| alephnerd wrote:
| It's similar all over Asia. Netflix set prices much higher than
| local platforms or other western platforms (eg. Hotstar, Prime
| Video, etc).
|
| > due to lack of local content and poor execution
|
| I mean, this did play a role as well. It's hard to justify how
| (comparatively) expensive Netflix is in India despite lacking
| so much content.
|
| It seems they are trying to change this by tying up with Red
| Chili, Viacom18, and Balaji, but it's become a very competitive
| market now.
|
| But that's just for Hindi media. For regional content (eg.
| Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi), Netflix is horrible.
| geodel wrote:
| > It's hard to justify how (comparatively) expensive Netflix
| is in India
|
| I mean Zee is pooped out. Disney+Hotstar lost like 12 million
| customers and posting big losses. Sony, Disney shut shops in
| India. Seems YRF is the one making money following Hollywood
| lead in creating their own Spy universe. Groups like Reliance
| maybe the only one to survive. For them entertainment expense
| is incidental in other larger considerations. So others
| services are cheaper but it is not like they are or will
| likely make money.
|
| > It seems they are trying to change this by tying up with
| Red Chili, Viacom18, and Balaji,
|
| Yeah, they can add tons of Indian style TV shows with daily
| 10 min snippet + 20 min ads specially with ad supported
| version now available in more and more places. I think it can
| workout well from cost per content hours perspective.
|
| But movie economics is impossible specially for big budget
| movies with top stars. Compare to US, Indian movies spend ~5
| times more money on actors out of total movie budget.
| Something gotta change with movie budgets, viewers
| preferences, actor payments etc.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > For them entertainment expense is incidental in other
| larger considerations. So others services are cheaper but
| it is not like they are or will likely make money
|
| Yep. But the other difference too is the fact that regional
| media has become much more popular as Tier 2/3/4 metros
| become better off.
|
| This is a major differentiator as local language players
| (who tend to work with Jio or Amazon, or make their own
| platforms like Hoichoi for Bangla or Aha for Telugu) will
| bundle and price at a lower rate.
|
| Basically, regional production companies undercut platforms
| by building their own niche platforms to act as a bundle
| with a competitively priced Jio membership.
|
| Companies like Netflix and Disney Star simply can't compete
| with that as they never had relationships with regional
| producers compared to Amazon or Reliance.
|
| > movie economics is impossible specially for big budget
| movies with top stars
|
| Agreed, but the companies above also create OTT shows as
| well now, but have drastically fallen behind due to lack of
| regionalization.
|
| Netflix+Hotstar just can't compete when a Jio, Amazon
| Prime, and regional OTT (Aha, Hoichoi, Koode) bundle comes
| out to around the same price as a Netflix India membership
| and gives much more content, prime delivery, and 5G+Fiber
| Internet
|
| It's not that Indians are cheap, it's moreso the fact that
| price expectations are lower as conglomerates are using
| OTT/Entertainment as a loss leader to expand much higher
| margin industries like Telecom or ECommerce
| geodel wrote:
| > Netflix+Hotstar just can't compete when a Jio, Amazon
| Prime, and regional OTT (Aha, Hoichoi, Koode) bundle
| comes out to around the same price as a Netflix India
| membership and gives much more content.
|
| I have a feeling that in few years instead of doing what
| others are doing better Netflix may drastically cut down
| Indian division and just keep their exclusive shows/
| movies with high price and low market share.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Netflix needs India (and ASEAN) as those are their only
| growth markets left, but they entered both markets way
| too late and failed to build the right partnerships.
|
| > Netflix may drastically cut down Indian division
|
| It's already extremely barebones.
|
| Netflix India originals are just Netflix branding on
| previously produced content by the production companies I
| mentioned earlier.
|
| It's the same with Netflix Anime (I think it's rebranded
| Tokyo MX and TV Asahi content) and Netflix KDramas (JTBC
| - who also has a stake in TV Asahi and Tokyo MX - and CJ
| Group).
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Maybe they'll buy the local company.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Naw, the RoI isn't there for Netflix as there are too
| many companies, and Reliance or Essel Group would swoop
| in anyhow.
| ciabattabread wrote:
| > Disney+Hotstar lost like 12 million customers and posting
| big losses.
|
| Wasn't that because they lost a contract to broadcast
| cricket? [1]
|
| [1] https://deadline.com/2023/08/disney-ipl-free-cricket-
| india-s...
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| It's weird to call it a cable network as it's actually all
| satellite, which is how they historically got such a huge
| foothold due to being accessible in rural areas.
|
| Although I imagine it's akin to US cable companies in terms of
| business model.
|
| Also, the owning company's strategy at exclusivity (read:
| paying for a monopoly license) for content has how they've
| maintained their moat over the years.
|
| I've done a tiny bit of contracting work for them a while back
| and they essentially had a money printing license. Leading to
| interesting organisational dysfunctions.
| geodel wrote:
| > It's weird to call it a cable network as it's actually all
| satellite,
|
| You are right. I just used the term colloquially. Or perhaps
| working for a cable company in US I imagined satellite TV
| doesn't even exist :-)
| ActionHank wrote:
| They also have deep relationships with cell providers who will
| routinely offer packages where the bandwidth usage for their
| platform is free.
|
| This is huge because most people in Africa access the internet
| via cell carriers.
| huytersd wrote:
| 10% is still like the population of France and the population
| of Germany combined.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Exactly, which means Netflix is smart to keep the price up,
| they get to serve a market that has money, and is profitable,
| and only this market.
| brnt wrote:
| Urf, do I hate that sort of reasoning. "Only 2% of users do X
| in our app, scrap it!". Yeah, that's still hundreds of
| thousands of users, dip shit. 0.5% is blind, we still try to
| (or should!) support them!
|
| Plus, so many features address different small percentages,
| meaning that if you scrap all those lesser used features you
| piss off basically the whole population.
|
| Unless you have no users, percent point numbers of users are
| significant.
| SmartestUnknown wrote:
| Netflix is definitely trying its hardest to get into the Indian
| market and I do think they are gaining some ground recently.
| They have picked up a lot of new telugu movies and has
| basically become essential if you want to stream new movies.
| They also have mobile only plans at 199Rs but not sure how many
| such subscriptions they sell but for me at least the 649Rs plan
| is not too bad even if my parents watch at most 1-2 movies a
| month on Netflix.
|
| If they are able to get even 2 million telugu households over
| to subscribe the next few years, that would be a revenue of
| about $150 million which I think is probably much less than the
| amount of money they spend on telugu content.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| An important aspect of being "successful" is the local viewing
| habits. At least in India, cricket is one of the biggest
| elements of TV viewership and the second biggest element is the
| cheaply produced poorly written run of the mill TV novellas
| that last 30 years and 1000+ episodes. Neither of which Netflix
| has or necessarily wants on it's platform. But if you ignore
| those two, Netflix comes out ahead on everything: Movies,
| international content, well produced TV shows etc.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| I havr to disagree on the "poorly written telenovellas" bit.
|
| Indian telenovellas (also dubbed Turkish telenovellas for
| some reason) are big business in South Africa in part because
| we have a pretty large "indian" population and the stories
| are culturally relatable to Africans unsurprisingly: evil
| Mother-in-law and sister-in-law battle with resilient wife,
| clever wife managing a falling household, struggles with
| pregnancy, etc...theres a market there that locally priduced
| content cannot fill due to the local industry being
| thoroughly underfunded.
| tiznow wrote:
| I can say outright that the Indian and Korean media is as
| popular as anything else in many patches of Africa.
| beAbU wrote:
| It's worth pointing out that ShowMax is (was?) Included as a
| bonus extra for DSTv, which is our local satellite tv provider in
| SA. DSTv is basically the only way you can get sports in SA
| (unless you only watch local soccer, then terrestrial broadcast
| is fine), so many people have it despite the ridiculous cost.
| They also do quite a few local promotions with telcos and others
| to bundle a number of months free with some purchase, or the data
| costs are zero rated on mobile networks, etc.
|
| These might be inflating the numbers a little.
|
| Since we dont have the other streaming providvers here,
| specifically HBO, we need to rely on ShowMax to provide those
| coveted shows for us.
| King1st wrote:
| I'm more surprised Netflix is doing so well. Although a 1.8m isnt
| even 1% of Netflix's total subscribers.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Australia has Binge, which I don't think is available elsewhere
| (maybe NZ?). It seems like Australia is a small enough market
| that HBO, Paramount, NBC, Universal, etc - all the not-quite-
| Netflix sized streaming services - have chosen to just licence
| instead of try to launch (examples, some may have launched). This
| means that Binge has a really quite wide range of high quality
| content and in many ways feels like Netflix from the glory days.
| robbiep wrote:
| Although you'd think the application/platform itself would be a
| totally solved technical problem and there'd be complete COTS
| systems they can implement, and then you experience using the
| binge app on your Apple TV, phone or via browser and it's a
| dumpster fire
| huitzitziltzin wrote:
| On a continent with one billion people, this service with 2.1
| million subscribers has "zoomed past" Netflix which has 1.8...
|
| I don't think either firm is contending for a throne from which
| one can be dethroned. Not with those numbers.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| So if anyone has an idea, who provides much of the content
| market for so many of the other 1+ billion people across
| Africa?
| brabel wrote:
| That's a funny question. Do you believe the African market is
| like the European market, where most people can afford paid
| TV? To be honest, I don't know for sure, but I would imagine
| most people would watch "old-fashioned", free TV channels as
| in most countries I've been to that's what I see people
| watching.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| also my understanding is physical media is still popular.
| it is certainly more robust and requires less
| infrastructure.
| Havoc wrote:
| That's not what happened.
|
| The local supplier had the premium paid market 100% cornered via
| sat TV at ridiculous prices. Then people discovered netflix and
| local supplier started bleeding customers. Then they took forever
| to launch a competing product. Even with heavy cross promotion
| they barely managed to salvage the situation leading to current
| 39% / 33.5% split.
|
| If anyone dethroned anyone here its other way round
| danjc wrote:
| Indeed. Also when you consider that a chunk of Showmax
| subscribers cancelled their DStv subscription it's more like
| they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I'd like to try the service and try the local content. Does
| anyone have recommendations for what is particularly good and
| what is particulary influential? I've seen some West African and
| Nigerian film, but very little.
|
| Also, when they say localized content, does Showmax localize it
| to each country (or sometimes region, e.g., Fracophone West
| Africa?). 'Content localized to Africa' is as meaningful as
| 'content localized to the Americas', from Canada to Argentina.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-02-16 23:00 UTC)