Technology

Inside Showmax's tech stack

Pulling back the curtain on the video-on-demand service’s architecture and recommendation engine.

30 November 2021

Back in 2015, when Multichoice launched Showmax in South Africa, the aim was to get a first mover advantage in a market that didn’t exist at the time, but was expected to affect the prospects of the parent’s pay TV service. Coming from the same stable as DStv, the pedigree and understanding of the African video content market was undoubtable, but competing against the deep internet technology expertise of Netflix and other international video-on-demand (VOD) players would be a challenge.

While official figures aren’t readily available, research firm Dataxis says Showmax currently holds 31.6% of the local streaming VOD market, while Netflix has 29.7%. With Showmax and DStv streaming services experiencing 39% year-on-year growth of monthly active users, the market is obviously growing, and increasingly competitive as big-name VOD players also increase in number – Amazon Prime and Apple TV are already present, and Disney+ is expected to launch locally mid-2022.

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