Mobile TV in Africa growing

For a while now, media companies in Africa have been betting that the continent’s growing consumer class will pay for their premium pay-TV services.

And for a while now, it’s seemed like a decent bet. Revenue in the pay-TV market across sub-Saharan Africa has nearly doubled since 2010, topping $3.5 billion last year, and by some estimates could reach $6.2 billion by 2020.

But by then, much of the market may have already moved on.

In regions where mobile is the dominant device for content consumption, satellite pay-TV services already “are under some pressure,” said Simbarashe Mabasha, co-founder of Wabona, a mobile and online content service provider, in a recent interview.