South African pay television company MultiChoice Group has said its annual profit rose 2% with strong subscriber growth and profit elsewhere in Africa offsetting poor market conditions in its home country.
For the year to March 31, core headline earnings per share, which strips off some non-recurring costs and foreign currency fluctuations, rose to 8.28 rand from 8.14 rand a year ago.
However, i, the company said it would not pay a dividend, saying the strength of its balance sheet remains a “core focus”, given a local economic crisis, weaker rand and funding needs for the business such as its streaming platform Showmax.
MultiChoice has been investing billions of rand to fight off competition from streaming giants Netflix, Amazon and Disney.
Africa’s biggest subscription television firm entered into an agreement in March with U.S. media conglomerate Comcast to create a pan-Africa streaming platform built on the Showmax platform.
REUTERS
