French media giant Canal+ has announced a €100 million plan to revive growth at African pay TV operator MultiChoice Group, the company behind DStv and GOtv.
Canal+, which completed the acquisition of Multichoice late last year, announced the lifeline in its 2025 financial results released on Wednesday.
According to the results, Mulichoice recorded a significant decline in subscribers and revenue in 2025, driven by challenges in the operating environments, including Nigeria.
What they are saying
Canal+ in the financial results revealed that MultiChoice ended 2025 with 14.4 million subscribers, down from 14.9 million recorded a year earlier.
Revenue declined 6% to €2.4 billion, while adjusted earnings before interest and tax fell 14% to €159 million.
- “After experiencing impressive growth from 2010 to 2023, MultiChoice has faced challenges since the combined effects of macro -economic factors (e.g., currency devaluation in Nigeria, power cuts), a difficult transition to OTT with the expensive failure of Showmax, and strong inflation across most cost items, especially content, negatively impacted its profitability,” the company stated.
It noted that while MultiChoice had addressed the situation through short -term measures, in particular reduction in subscriber acquisition subsidies and price increases, these had a negative impact on the subscriber base, worsening the original profitability issues.
- “MultiChoice is facing a €140 million negative impact in 2026 from inertia of subscriber base driving decrease in revenues, and from cost inflation.
- “To restart subscriber growth, CANAL+ will launch a growth boost plan by investing around €100 million,” the company said.
As part of the push to attract new users, Canal+ plans to hire more than 1,000 sales staff across African markets, shifting MultiChoice towards a more sales-driven model designed to boost subscriber numbers.
Backstory
The development follows Canal+’s full acquisition of MultiChoice, a deal that significantly expanded the French broadcaster’s footprint in global pay-television markets.
- The transaction, finalised in September last year, was valued at about $3 billion and brought together two major players in the television and streaming industry.
- With the takeover completed, the combined group now serves more than 40 million subscribers across nearly 70 countries spanning Africa, Europe, and Asia, while employing roughly 17,000 people.
Canal+ has also indicated that it will outline a detailed integration strategy, including operational synergies and growth plans, during a strategic update scheduled for the first quarter of 2026.
What you should know
Earlier this month, Nairametrics reported that Canal+ planned to discontinue Showmax, the streaming platform previously operated by MultiChoice, as part of a broader cost-cutting strategy.
The platform, launched in August 2015, was designed as a pan-African streaming service competing with global platforms such as Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+.
However, Showmax struggled to achieve profitability. In its last financial results before the Canal+ takeover, MultiChoice disclosed that trading losses from the platform had expanded by 88%, while revenue generated from the service declined.
