Four months after American movie and TV show streaming service Netflix officially became available in Kenya, South African internet-based TV service ShowMax is now official in the country.
Kenya is among the 36 countries that the South African video-on-demand service will be available in, 10 months after its launch.
The other countries that are part of ShowMax’s expansion to cover the entire Sub-Saharan Africa are: Botswana, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Reunion, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
ShowMax debuted in August last year in South Africa where it has been available for R99 per month. In Kenya and the other countries where the service is now available, the service will cost about US $8 for the basic tier. Netflix currently charges users $10 per month for its basic HD streaming plan after a recent price change.
ShowMax boasts of 15,000 hours worth of content from movies to TV shows. It has Swahili and Nollywood sections that feature content meant to appeal to subscribers from all over the content. Kenyan subscribers will, for instance, find familiar faces in The Real Housewives of Kawangware and Vitimbi while those already hooked to US shows like Mad Men, Suits, Sherlock and Marvel’s Agents of Shield will equally be at home.
ShowMax is owned by Naspers. Multichoice Africa, the owner of the DSTV brand across the continent, is a subsidiary of Naspers so ShowMax is basically DSTV’s little cousin.
The service is accessible on the web, Android and iOS devices and via smart televisions (Samsung’s (Tizen), LG’s (webOS), Sony and Philips (Android TV)).
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