South Africa’s streaming war

Competition in South Africa’s video streaming market has increased significantly in recent years, and Amazon Prime Video offers the best value in terms of raw volume of content, a MyBroadband analysis has revealed.

The streaming platform has 9,749 titles available to South African viewers, comprising 8,426 movies and 1,323 series for R79 a month.

However, it should be noted that while Prime Video wins on pure volume of titles, series fans might find Netflix more attractive as it offers over 1,000 more series than Amazon’s streaming service.

Each episode in each season of a show was not individually counted as a title, which could change the picture somewhat for series lovers.

Prime Video also has a reputation in South Africa for being flooded with Bollywood content. However, the platform is also home to many blockbusters, Amazon Originals, and even some local content.

MyBroadband compared DStv Premium, Showmax, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV+ in terms of price, content, and price per title, movie, and series.

We used data from the streaming database JustWatch, which lists the movies and series on offer from various streaming services in the country.

DStv Premium’s on-demand titles were hand-counted on its platform, as JustWatch doesn’t track these.

The chart below summarises the content comparison for the five platforms.

Data from JustWatch

DStv Premium’s content offering is the second lowest of the services compared, with the MultiChoice-owned platform offering 668 series and 969 movies for a total of 1,637 titles.

However, it should be noted that the streaming platform offers live streaming of DStv Premium channels, including SuperSport.

It is difficult to put a value on what people are willing to pay for specific programming, including sports, which could make the service attractive to sports fans despite it carrying the highest monthly fee of R699.

Apple TV+ offers the least content to South African customers, primarily because it only streams Apple Originals.

Popular Apple Originals include Ted Lasso, Severance, and Shrinking. Apple TV+’s catalogue features 173 titles comprising 59 movies and 114 series for R124.99 per month.

MultiChoice’s Showmax takes third place with a total of 2,145 titles. Like DStv Premium, Showmax offers select live sports broadcasts and highlights. It costs R99 a month for the standard plan.

Bang-for-buck comparison

We compared content figures and pricing for each streaming service.

With the most titles and lowest price, Amazon Prime Video has the lowest price-per-title at R0.01. The next best offering comes from Netflix, whose Standard Plan at R159 per month works out to R0.03 per title.

Showmax isn’t far behind Netflix, with the streaming service costing R0.05 per title.

There’s a big jump when looking at DStv Premium and Apple TV+’s price-per-title. They cost R0.43 and R0.72 per title, respectively.

The price per title for each streaming service is compared in the chart below.

A complete breakdown of price per title, series, and movie is provided in the table further below.

Data from JustWatch

Now read: DStv vs international satellite TV operators — South Africa getting a raw deal

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South Africa’s streaming war