DStv's South African slide pulls MultiChoice revenue down 3% under Canal+

DStv is still losing subscription revenue in South Africa, a year into Canal+'s ownership of MultiChoice. In a nine-month trading update released on 22 October, Canal+ said MultiChoice revenue fell 3% on a like-for-like basis in the nine months to September, mainly because of lower South African subscription revenue.

The rand hides some of the damage. On a reported basis, MultiChoice revenue rose 0.4% to €1.81 billion, which Canal+ said benefited from "a material positive currency effect". A stronger rand against the euro, the currency Canal+ reports in, turned a local decline into a small gain on paper.

For South African viewers, the numbers explain why MultiChoice has spent the past two months reshaping its packages. For investors, they show how much of Canal+'s African story still depends on fixing one market.

The South African drag

Canal+ said higher revenue in most of MultiChoice's other English-speaking African markets partly offset the South African fall. It did not disclose subscriber numbers. It said the Africa and Asia subscriber base had "normalised" in the third quarter after a boost from the FIFA World Cup in the first half of the year.

Read that against the revenue line. The company will say the subscriber base settled back after a tournament. It will not say how many South African households are still paying, or whether those households are on a cheaper package than a year ago. A 3% like-for-like drop in MultiChoice revenue, driven mainly by South African subscriptions, can be fewer customers, lower spend per customer, or both. The update does not separate them.

The rate of decline is slowing. MultiChoice's like-for-like revenue fell 2% in the third quarter, compared with 3.4% in the first half. Canal+ attributed part of that improvement to favourable comparisons with last year's sport calendar, so not all of it can be credited to the turnaround plan. A softer decline that the company itself ties partly to the fixture list is not yet evidence that the new packages are working.

The contrast with Canal+'s older African business is sharp. Excluding MultiChoice, revenue in Africa and Asia grew 10.2% like-for-like, led by French-speaking Africa. Including MultiChoice, the region grew just 0.7% like-for-like, to €2.604 billion. South Africa is large enough, inside that combined figure, to pull a double-digit regional increase down to almost nothing.

What MultiChoice changed

On 17 September, two weeks before the quarter ended, DStv replaced its Access, Family and Compact bouquets with Starter, Select and Sports packages, and added a Movies & Series option below Premium. Chief executive Maxime Saada said "a new, simplified value proposition was launched in South Africa". Canal+ plans to roll the same structure out across English- and Portuguese-speaking Africa over the coming months.

The relaunch came too late in the quarter to show up clearly in these results. Two weeks of a new price card cannot explain a nine-month trend, and it can barely move a three-month one. The fourth quarter, which includes the festive season, will be the first real test of whether the new packages slow the revenue decline.

Sport is the other lever. Canal+ has secured exclusive rights to all UEFA men's club competitions in more than 40 African countries from 2027 to 2031, and rights across Africa to the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations and its qualifiers. Those rights sit in future seasons. They are not in the nine months Canal+ just reported, and they do not change what a South African household pays this spring.

Showmax is no longer part of the picture. The streaming service was shut down at the end of April. MultiChoice had reported a R4.9 billion trading loss for Showmax in the year to March 2025. Closing it removes a loss-making streamer from the story. It does not, by itself, rebuild DStv subscription revenue in South Africa, which is the line Canal+ says is still falling.

The group view

Canal+ group revenue rose 37.5% to €6.41 billion for the nine months, almost entirely because MultiChoice is now consolidated. On a like-for-like basis, group revenue fell 0.3%. Without MultiChoice, revenue grew 1.3% to €4.65 billion.

The gap between those three numbers is the whole update. The 37.5% jump is an accounting change: MultiChoice is inside the group this year and was not, on the same basis, last year. The like-for-like figure strips that out and leaves a small decline. The figure without MultiChoice is a modest increase. Put them together and the acquired business is what turned a small underlying gain into a small underlying loss, even while the headline in euros looks like a boom.

"We are making good progress with the MultiChoice turnaround plan," Saada said, adding that Canal+ remains on track for its 2026 synergy target and full-year guidance. That guidance is flat revenue and adjusted operating profit (EBIT) of €735 million. Canal+ is targeting €250 million in EBIT synergies this year. Progress, on these pages, is a slowing rate of decline and a synergy target, not a return to subscription growth in South Africa.

Canal+, which took control of MultiChoice in October 2025, began trading on the JSE as a secondary listing in June, so South African investors now hold the MultiChoice turnaround as part of a larger French group. A JSE shareholder reading the 37.5% headline without the like-for-like line would miss the point of the release. The rand made the reported MultiChoice number look slightly up. The business Canal+ says it is trying to fix is still down.

What is still unresolved

Canal+ has not said how many DStv subscribers it has in South Africa, so it is unclear whether the revenue fall comes from fewer households, lower spending per household or both. It has not split South African subscription revenue from the rest of MultiChoice, beyond saying the local subscription line is the main reason for the 3% like-for-like drop.

The first full quarter of the new Starter, Select and Sports packages will only show up in the full-year figures. Until then, the package relaunch, the UEFA rights from 2027 and the Africa Cup of Nations rights are plans. The nine-month ledger is the South African subscription decline, a currency effect that flatters the euro number, and a group result that looks large because MultiChoice has been consolidated.