Battle for Pay TV market intensifies

With the rising competition in the Pay TV market, players are deploying catchy campaigns to lure new clients into their markets while retaining the already existing.

Information obtained from Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) in December last year showed that StarTimes had taken over as the market leader in terms of subscriber base with about 130,000 subscribers, closely followed by Multichoice (DStv and GOtv) with about 100,000 subscribers altogether.

Zuku Tv and MOtv have less than 30,000 subscribers combined.
StarTimes’ lead happened when the company was involved in several promos that included lowering its decoder prices, among others.

DStv, one of the top Pay TV players yesterday became the first player this year to launch an aggressive, eight weeks promotion, involving about Shs110 million in cash and other items that will be won.
The promotion will involve a weekly lucky winner taking home $5,000 (about Shs13.5 million).

Mr Albert Nga, the DStv Uganda head of marketing said the campaign comes with a baseline of rewarding the company’s loyal customers.
Mr Nga said: “Everyone that will pay their subscription fees this week will be viable of taking part in the draw for this week. A client can choose to subscribe weekly so that he/she gets a chance to take part in the draw.”

Although Mr Nga declined to relate the campaign with rising competition, recent market statistics and prevailing conditions point to competition not rewarding customers as a core reason for such promotion.

Combined, there are about 300,000 Pay TV subscribers of which some are active while others are inactive.