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DStv active customers plunge 84pc in a year on back of price hikes
MultiChoice Kenya has turned to offers on packages in a bid to arrest the falling numbers, with inactive customers on a particular package being encouraged to pay before being upgraded to the immediate higher bouquet at the price of their current package.
More than 84 percent of the active DStv customers in Kenya dropped out in the year to June 30 amid high prices and tough economic times that have forced many individuals to turn to illegal online streaming sites.
Industry data by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) shows that the pay-television firm had 188,824 active subscribers at the end of June this year, down from the 1.19 million it had a year earlier.
CA defines active accounts as ones where customers have had an active subscription at least once in the past 90 days.
MultiChoice Kenya, the subsidiary that operates DStv in Kenya, increased prices of its packages by up to Sh500 from November 1, 2024 and further reviewed them upwards by up to Sh700 from the start of last month.
Increased prices of the six bouquets that MultiChoice Kenya offers hit the majority of customers, forcing them to forgo their subscriptions amid a growing popularity of online streaming, which is mostly on illegal sites.
The higher prices came at a time when most workers and households are grappling with near stagnant earnings, forcing many to cut on non-essentials like pay-television services.
MultiChoice Kenya hiked the cost of the DStv Premium package to Sh11,000 from Sh10,500 effective November 1, 2024 while the cost of Compact Plus rose to Sh6,800from Sh6,500.
The firm then reviewed upwards the prices of the six packages from August 1, 2025 with the cost of the DStv Premium jumping to Sh11,700 from Sh11,000 while that for Compact Plus package rose to Sh7,300 from Sh6,800.
MultiChoice Kenya has increased prices of its packages in the Kenyan market five times in three years as the company moves to arrest dipping revenues.
Subscription revenues that MultiChoice made in the Kenyan market, when expressed as a share of the total subscription revenues, dipped to 7 percent in the year to March from 8 percent a year earlier.
MultiChoice Kenya has turned to offers on packages in a bid to arrest the falling numbers, with inactive customers on a particular package being encouraged to pay before being upgraded to the immediate higher bouquet at the price of their current package.
For example, an inactive customer on the DStv Access package is upgraded to the DStv Family (costs Sh2,250) package after paying Sh1,450 for the former.
The free-fall in DStv’s active customers significantly contributed to the 76.9 percent drop in the overall active pay-television subscribers to 1.47 million in the year to June.
Tanzanian-owned Azam saw its active subscribers dip 63.1 percent to 30,095 in the period under review while those for Zuku (owned by Wananchi) marginally fell by 1.6 percent to 252,051.
MultiChoice Kenya, like the other pay television firms in Kenya (Zuku, Azam and StarTimes) has come under increased pressure from the rise in illegal television streaming platforms. These sites have become the go-to for customers grappling with hard economic times.
The four firms offer Direct-to-Home (DTH), Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and cable-based television services.
