Effective 1 April 2021, MultiChoice South Africa will increase the prices of all its DStv bouquets and add-on services. According to Simon Camerer, the company’s chief operating officer, they have kept the increases as small as possible and well below projected consumer price inflation (CPI) for the year.
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“We have done our best to keep the prices under control. On a weighted average basis, you’re looking at a 2.4% increase,” Camerer said.
Most packages will see an increase of less than 5 percent, with the Premium and Compact Plus packages seeing the smallest increase in price. The price of DStv Premium and DStv Compact Plus will both increase by R10 per month. This is due to increased pressure the satellite television provider is facing from subscribers of the pricier package. Due to economic circumstances and increased competition from much more affordable streaming services, many subscribers are ditching the more expensive options for smaller packages, or leaving DStv altogether.
According to Camerer, currency volatility is a major reason for yearly price increases, as MultiChoice buys a large proportion of its content from overseas on foreign currency. “We still have to pay most of our content costs in dollars and we have to try and manage the exchange rate as best we can,” he said.
Both operational costs and content costs are increasing, but the company has worked hard to minimise the impact by bringing the average price increases in at well below CPI.
The biggest increase in price is for DStv BoxOffice movie rentals, where the R5 increase translates to a 14 increase in price.
Are you still a DStv subscriber or have you switched to a streaming service? If so, why do you stay with DStv? Let us know in the comments below.
