DStv subscribers in South Africa will again pay more from 1 April with MultiChoice hiking monthly subscription fees for the year.
MultiChoice is telling DStv subscribers that it is trying to keep subscription fees down in South Africa's tough economic climate.
DStv Family subscribers face the biggest price hike: from R219 to R235 – a jump of 7.3%. That is well above the current headline consumer inflation rate of 6.6%.
All the other DStv monthly price hikes are below the current inflation rate.
It's not yet clear by how much M-Net analogue subscribers' monthly subscription fee will increase.
DStv Premium subscribers will have to fork out R789 per month from April for MultiChoice's most expensive service, although it represents an increase of just 3.95% – the smallest increase out of all the packages.
Last year the DStv Premium increase was a massive 8.58%. It's however not surprising that DStv Premium subscribers are getting the smallest percentage increase this year.
The overall percentage of DStv Premium subscribers as part of MultiChoice's total subscribers base has been falling in 2016 and slid from 22% to 18% ((2.24 million subscribers to 2.005 million).
That's according to MultiChoice's results for the 6 months until the end of September 2016.
MultiChoice likely wants to stem or reverse this trend as subscribers have been opting away from the top tier, not seeing it as representing enough value.
DStv Extra subscribers will pay R489 from 1 April 2017 – a 6.53% increase. The DStv Extra increase was 8% in 2016.
DStv Compact is increasing from R345 to R365, an increase of 5.79%. The DStv Compact increase was 8.2% in 2016.
The subscription fees of MultiChoice's cheapest two offerings, DStv Access (R99) and DStv EasyView (R29) will remain unchanged.
The monthly access fee (R85), individual rentals for DStv BoxOffice movies (R35) and DStv decoder insurance will also remain unchanged.