If you’ve ever shopped around for DStv alternatives, then you’ll know about the OpenView decoder. It’s much more popular than I anticipated and last year a total of 1 574 395 OpenView decoders were activated.
eMedia Holding’s, the company that owns OpenView estimates that around 35K of these decoders were being activated each month which is quite the number:
Openview set-top box activations continue to grow at an average of 35,000 per month. At the end of the period, a total of 1,574,395 (2018: 1,149,217) boxes have been activated.
eMedia Holdings Consolidated Results
Whilst this number is impressive, I initially wondered if eMedia Holdings only makes money from hardware sales of the OpenView decoders which would be a pretty weak business model. It turns out, eMedia also owns eTV and eNCA which makes their business model a hybrid of advertising and direct to consumer sales – a more viable model (even though they are not profitable).
The business model also justifies why the hardware of the OpenView decoders has been revised and we’ve seen OpenView decoders with PVR functionality being introduced simply because the more of these OpenView can get into homes, the more advertising revenues they can demand.
eTV brought in revenues of R131.8 million but incurred costs of R255.7 million and whilst the OpenView platform is loss-making, eHoldings will continue investing in the short-term:
The television market is facing numerous technology and viewership challenges which will require the group to continually assess its strategic alternatives. Our investment in Openview provides the group with strategic flexibility and is part of our plan to address the challenges of the impending digital migration transition.
With the sale and our closure of certain non-core assets during the year, the group is focused on its core businesses of broadcasting, content creation and a platform and technology provider.
eMedia Holdings Consolidated Resul
4 comments
Hi Techzim, is this is for the whole of Africa, or Southern Africa region only??
It should be in every territory
Thanks Farai, would have been good to state that in the article though.
There is no way to separate those figures. The decoders bought by Zimbos and Zambians are obtained from the same places that South Africans buy them. The decoder also does not report its location, activation is done via USSD platform which is only accessible using a South African mobile line. The closest way you could do it is either count physically all the decoders crossing the border or count all the activations done using a roaming line but activations are also done by someone IN SA while the decoder they sent to their family back home is connected in Zim. Bear in mind this is a service FOR SOUTH AFRICA and we just “kwanakwana” because there is no way to shut out other regions – well no reasonable and cost effective way at least.