MultiChoice late on Tuesday confirmed 2019’s DStv price increases for its pay-TV packages, that will see an annual subscription increase of between 1.96% and 6.42% from 1 April 2019.
The monthly subscription fee for MultiChoice’s most expensive and cheapest packages will remain unchanged, while there’s a price hike for all of the other DStv packages.
The monthly subscription fee for DStv Premium will remain unchanged at R809, and the subscription fee for DStv Easy is unchanged at R29 per month.
The Access Fee of R90 is also being increased to R95 per month that subscribers must pay if they want to use a personal video recorder (PVR) decoder like the DStv Explora.
DStv Family, aimed at the mass market, will see an increase of 6.42% from R249 to R265 per month – the DStv package with the biggest increase, followed by DStv Access that will increase from R99 to R105 – an annual increase from 2018 of 6.06%.
The monthly price of DStv Compact Plus will increase by 1.96% from R509 to R519 per month.
The percentage increase of all of the DStv packages this year is lower than the percentage increase from 2017 to 2018, except for DStv Access that will see a 6.06% increase whereas the price remained unchanged last year.
MultiChoice to go live on the stock market
That means that the proposed hikes will be minimal. It comes at a time where the MultiChoice group have to be incredibly careful not to upset the applecart, as they prepare to list on the JSE by Wednesday 27 February.
The move is expected to help the company provide more quality content to its base, as well. By floating the shares on the JSE, an increase in net worth will allow MultiChoice to spend more money on quality programming and it gives them space to further enhance their streaming services.
One thing is clear: These guys aren’t running scared of Netflix.
The current rate of inflation sits near the 5% mark. We’re going to look at the complete price range for what you could end up paying later in the year, depending on the DStv package you have installed at home:
See the price increases here:
