(Recasts with CFO interview)
By Promit Mukherjee
JOHANNESBURG, June 9 (Reuters) – South African pay television company Multichoice Group is eyeing producing more local content and advertising revenues from upcoming FIFA World Cup in November and December to continue its growth trajectory, it said on Thursday.
The company has benefited from people working from home during the pandemic through its services such as direct-to-home (via satellite) and digital terrestrial television (via ground antennae) channels, video-on-demand and streaming service Showmax, a competitor of Netflix.
Its subscriptions jumped during the pandemic, even though its revenues from live sports broadcasts and advertising wobbled and competition from Netflix, Amazon and Disney heated up.
Now, as pandemic restrictions ease, its subscription base is not expected to replicate previous growth while a rise in inflation could restrain entertainment spending.
“We’ve got a very strong line-up of content this next year, both local content, as well as the FIFA World Cup,” which would help retain subscribers and boost revenue, said Tim Jacobs, CFO of the group.
Over the next two years, the company plans to raise spending on local content to 50% of its total entertainment spending, from the current 47%, and take its Africa-based shows and movies library to 70,000 hours, he said.
The company is the only broadcaster in the continent that has rights to show all 64 World Cup football matches to be played in Qatar in November and December, Jacobs added.
For the year ended March 31, its core headline earnings per share, the main profit measure in South Africa, was 8.14 rand ($0.5326), up 6% from 7.67 rand in the same period a year ago.
It declared a dividend of 5.65 rand and added almost a million customers in Africa to reach 21.8 million subscribers for the year.
($1 = 15.2836 rand) (Reporting by Promit Mukherjee; Editing by Edmund Blair and Bernadette Baum)
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