South African media giant, Naspers has hired a former HBO executive, Akash Bhatia as chief financial officer for its Netflix competitor, Showmax.<\/p>\n
Bhatia has previously worked at US media companies such as HBO and NBC Universal. He currently serves as vice president of finance at Naspers’ classifieds business.<\/p>\n
Showmax launched in South Africa on 19 August, offering a subscription video on demand (SVOD) service for a monthly fee of R99.<\/p>\n
The service offers subscribers access to over 11,000 hours of TV shows \u2013 made up of over 750 titles, 850 seasons, and 19,000 episodes – as well as a selection of over 400 movies.<\/p>\n
It launched ahead of global streaming company Netflix’s entry into the South African market, which launched with a reduced selection of titles.<\/p>\n
One of the key aspects of Naspers’ strategy with Showmax was to expand outside of South Africa, to take on Netflix head-on in various markets.<\/p>\n
Naspers will target over 15 million subscription VOD viewers outside South Africa, it said, previously.<\/p>\n
“What attracted me to Showmax is the growth potential and how they\u2019re tackling expansion,” Bhatia said in an e-mail to Bloomberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n “The approach of being locally relevant in everything from content and functionality to payments and partnerships makes a lot of sense.”<\/p>\n Netflix competitor ShowMax launches in SA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Vodacom in talks with Naspers over ShowMax<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n SA Netflix competitor ShowMax for R99 per month<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nMore on ShowMax<\/h3>\n