The Numbers of Subscribers of Netflix in Nigeria and in South Africa and the Way Forward is Content Localization for Nigerians
Currently the numbers of Nigerian subscribers on Netflix are only 169,600+ out of a population of 106 million bankable adults.
South Africa has by far the most paid subscribers on Netflix with 1,172,800 subscriptions, accounting for 73.3 percent of the 1.6 million subscribers in sub-Saharan Africa.
South Africa has 69.5 percent of the $135 million subscription revenue from the region in 2022. Netflix made $93.82 million from South Africa alone.
What are the challenges of Netflix in Nigeria?
What are the solutions?
I have written on the challenges and solutions in my previous articles in 2022 and 2023.
Showmax of the MultiChoice Group, the biggest and largest entertainment company in Africa has overtaken Netflix on the continent. I prefer to call the MultiChoice, the King Kong of African Entertainment Industry.
The MultiChoice Group and Comcast’s NBCUniversal Media are investing more than US$177 million into Showmax
The strategic partnerships with Comcast and HBO and the access to the biggest football leagues in the world have increased the international milage and patronage of Showmax in Africa and beyond.
Nigeria with the largest population in Africa actually has the largest viewers of content online on the continent.
There were 103.0 million internet users in Nigeria in January 2024. Nigeria's internet penetration rate stood at 45.5 percent of the total population at the start of 2024. Kepios analysis indicates that internet users in Nigeria increased by 2.2 million (+2.2 percent) between January 2023 and January 2024
Majority of them watch Nollywood videos on YouTube spending millions of dollars monthly on data.
Read the following reports:
Streaming swells monthly internet spend to N216bn - Businessday NG-
MTN Nigeria’s data revenues have risen from N102.99 billion in the six months ending June 2019 to N349.51 billion in the three months ending March 2024. Airtel Nigeria’s data revenues have grown from N28.81 billion ($80 million at N360.06/$) as of the three months ended June 2019 to N151.15 billion ($116 million at N1,303/$) as of the quarter ended March 2024. Average data usage per customer has grown from 1.63GB to 6.3 GB per month on Airtel. MTN’s average data usage per customer rose to 8.6GB as of the end of Q1, 2024.
Amid penetration surge, Nigerians spend over N500b on data in Q1 | The Guardian Nigeria News - Nigeria and World News — Technology — The Guardian -
In 2023, MTN alone raked in N1.07 trillion from data subscriptions, representing a 39.8 per cent growth from N764.82 billion in 2022. Similarly, active data users on the network of MTN jumped by 12.7 per cent to 70.66 million in 2023, rising by over five million.
Facts and Figures
There are more than 20 million people in Nigeria who can afford the monthly subscriptions for Netflix. But Netflix has to CONNECT with them in their most spoken languages by doing the following:
1. Content localization which MultiChoice has used to attract millions of more subscribers in Nigeria.
There should be Netflix Yoruba;
Netflix Igbo and Netflix Hausa
These are the biggest and largest tribes in Nigeria with more than 150 million people in Nigeria and over 20 million in other countries.
There are different types of content localization.
2.?
How the Numbers of Subscribers of Netflix in Nigeria Can Increase To Over 1 Million Before 2025
It has been done before by a multinational company in Nigeria. And the same method will attract thousands of new subscribers to Netflix.
The fact is millions of people in Nigeria spend 100 percent more on paying for data to watch videos on YouTube monthly than what subscribers to Netflix pay monthly in the country.
My younger sister buys 25GB of data on the MTN network monthly to watch videos on YouTube paying N500 for 2GB.
She is one of the millions of people in Nigeria watching movies daily on YouTube.
She is addicted to Nollywood and Hollywood movies; watching more than four movies daily in-between her duties in the house. And she also reads novels and her King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Her neighbor on the third floor spends more than my sister watching movies on DStv channels of the MultiChoice Group in Nigeria.
Netflix can consult me for how to overtake Showmax before the new year.
I am an expert on what I have proposed to Netflix.
I was commissioned by the John's Hopkins University's Population Communication Services (JHU/ PCS) to produce fully illustrated booklets on family planning methods in Pidgin English, Igbo,Hausa and Yoruba for Nigeria in 1984 and updated in 1990.
Therefore, I am an expert in content localization in Nigeria since when I was 21 to date.
I have also done field trips on demographics of the population of Nigeria.
Americans streamed more than 19 million years’ worth of content last year
Streaming services continue to gain momentum as audiences’ favored destination for content, but the past year of viewing behavior illustrates how dramatically content offerings have evolved since Netflix introduced audiences to original programming back in 2013.
Before the debut of House of Cards, the political drama series on Netflix, which was the first TV series to appear exclusively on a streaming service, virtually all other streaming content had been licensed from other sources. Perhaps viewed as an experiment or a risk by some at the time, original content has grown to become a competitive advantage for streaming services, as many original titles attracted viewers to the platforms, and in some cases, they outperformed acquired content.
In total, Americans streamed more than 19.4 million years of content last year, up 27% from about 15 million years in 2021. The increase was driven by the breadth of new and expanded services, coupled by the depth of content—particularly streaming originals. In the years following the arrival of House of Cards, annual viewership reviews would highlight the incredible support that deep libraries of acquired content would provide. That changed in 2022, as viewing minutes for top-performing original content dramatically outpaced top-performing acquired content, with Netflix’s Stranger Things taking the top slot among all series.
High Cost of Data is Still a Big Challenge for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and other Streaming Services in Africa
The cost of 1GB of data, enough for one hour of video streaming, is between $1.50 and $30 in Africa.
Subscribers spend more on data than subscription fees for Netflix and Amazon Prime Video on the continent. Showmax of the MultiChoice Group is Available to all the millions of subscribers to DStv, but majority of the populations in African countries cannot afford DStv.
The cost of data can be reduced by all the telecoms in Africa with fast internet connection. 10GB should not cost more than $1 which is between N500 and N750 in the current exchange rate of the USD to the Naira in Nigeria, the largest market on the continent.
My suggestion is Netflix and Amazon Prime Video should also be available offline on cable TV channels to attract everyone who can afford to pay the subscription to the cable TV channels for only $2 monthly.
What matters most in entertainment are four things I call QAAA:
1. Quality of the content
2. Availability of the content
3. Accessibility to the content
4. Affordability of the content.
The content must be of good Quality; Available, Accessible and Affordable.
- By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, Publisher/Editor, NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Series, International content development and marketing consultant. @Vuulr Program Partner @Cinewav Affiliate Partner