{"id":810790,"date":"2025-02-09T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-09T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=810790"},"modified":"2025-02-09T07:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-02-09T05:13:09","slug":"goodbye-print-video-games-and-streaming-are-now-big-business-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/technology\/810790\/goodbye-print-video-games-and-streaming-are-now-big-business-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye print media: Video games and streaming are now the big business in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PWC’s latest Africa Entertainment and Media Outlook (E&M) 2024-2028 shows that video games, streaming services and cinema are set to see strong growth in the coming years\u2014while newspapers, magazines and books are in decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest outlook provides a guide on navigating the trends and opportunities facing E&M across South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PwC noted that, unlike many global markets where fixed broadband is prevalent, Africa’s E&M growth is primarily driven by mobile services due to low fixed broadband penetration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said that expansion of 4G and 5G networks is crucial for connectivity, with mobile subscriptions significantly outpacing fixed broadband. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa is expected to reach a tipping point where expected to beat 4G subscriptions overtake 3G by the end of last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, Africa lags one technological generation behind the global trend, where 5G is expected to overtake 4G by 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In line with global trends, PwC said that video leads as the largest content category in South Africa, taking an 82.2% share of all the data consumed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Social video is the main growth driver within the video sector, with platforms like TikTok and Instagram growing in popularity in the market. In Nigeria, games also make up a significant share of data consumed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PwC said that South Africa is the most well-established E&M market in the study and will thus see slower growth over the forecast period, at an overall compound annual growth rate (cagr) of 4.2%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, across the 11 categories, 10 are expected to see growth over the coming years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this is not the case for newspapers, consumer magazines and books, which is a segment that is also seeing declines in many other global markets due to its reliance on print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PwC said that cinema, internet advertising and over-the-top (OTT) media services, known as streaming, are expected to see the most growth over the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OTT is expected to see 8.5% growth, taking revenue to R6.7 billion by 2028. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Ongoing infrastructure development and greater 5G adoption will help improve connective stability, fuelling growth in OTT and internet advertising,” said Pwc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cinema is expected to grow by 8.1% to R1.4 billion in revenue by 2027. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“International blockbusters will help drive the cinema industry in South Africa, which has been experiencing a challenging few years and is starting to show a steady recovery to pre-pandemic revenues by 2027.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, video games and esports are expected to grow by 6.8%, taking its total revenue to just close to R10 billion by 2028. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although these segments are expected to see large-scale growth, it is notable that mobile and fixed services still make up the majority of revenue in the E&M market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a cagr of 4.5%, mobile and fixed services are expected to reach R254 billion in revenue by 2028, making up the majority of the R363 billion for 2028. <\/p>\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s entertainment and media industries are set to experience large growth, except for those in print.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":810817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9878],"tags":[2407],"class_list":["post-810790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-pwc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810790"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":810953,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810790\/revisions\/810953"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}