MultiChoice signs deals with Netflix and Amazon

Africa’s largest pay TV operator MultiChoice, has signed a groundbreaking deal with Netflix and Amazon to bring the two companies’ streaming services to its own unified platform.

In the company’s annual results presentation for the year ended March, 31, 2020, MultiChoice said that it had entered into agreements with both Netflix and Amazon to integrate these services into its upcoming Explora device for South African customers.

This means that Netflix and Amazon Prime Video will in some way be accessible through the next Explora decoder model from MultiChoice.

“To position the business for the future, leverage the group’s scale and enhance the product ecosystem by providing access to a wider variety of content, the group recently concluded distribution agreements with two major international subscription video on demand (SVOD) providers,” MultiChoice said in its results.

In addition to this deal, MultiChoice provided more information regarding its upcoming DSTV Now standalone streaming service.

The company said in its results presentation that it had launched field trials of the service in South Africa.

Tim Jacobs, CFO, MultiChoice, said: “We have signed distribution agreements with two major international subscription video-on-demand services. Unfortunately, we are in a pre-release embargo period with both of these international players, which means that other than announcing that we have these two distribution deals, we can’t talk about the specifics until the formal consumer release.”

He added that MultiChoice will provide more information in the next few weeks, which will include details on how consumers will interface and engage with content from these streaming services.

Jacobs pointed out that that the agreement formed part of a new unified streaming platform MultiChoice would launch that would include content from international players.