MultiChoice is well known for their DStv satellite service and they have a huge presence in Kenya and other parts in the continent.
However thanks to the emergence of video on demand streaming sites, they have been forced to innovate. They have Showmax which is their own video on demand site that has an impressive catalogue.
They also have DStv Now which is a service that DStv customers can catch up with content from DStv. You can access it on a computer or on mobile and it has a lot of potential.
It seems like Multichoice has new plans to make DStv now become better. According to MyBroadband, the company will soon start testing DStv Now as a standalone service.
“We are about to hit field trials, and I think we announced last year that we will be rolling it out within this fiscal year, so that’s still our plan,” MultiChoice’s Connected Video CEO, Niclas Ekdahl was quoted as saying.
He also said that the company was working on a decoder-less product for a while and they want the platform to be well optimized before launch.
“I think the stuff that we’ve done on DStv Now in the past 12 months is actually bringing us closer to saying that ‘Yeah this is a service where I can stand behind’ and say that is going to be delivering a seamless user journey for our consumers,” he said.
DStv Now has improved over time with the introduction of profiles, watchlists and recommendations and is catching up with its sister platform, Showmax.
Multichoice revealed that Showmax and DStv achieved a 48% year on year growth while specifically Showmax recorded a 19% year on year increase in average hours watched. This kind of growth is what MultiChoice wants to capitalize on and it will be good to fend off competition from the likes of Netflix and Disney.
