You're reading it here first.
I can tell you that On Digital Media (ODM) who operates the new TopTV pay TV service will be shipping between 20 000 and 30 000 TopTV decoders between Thursday and the weekend to shops across South Africa.
That's after the initial stock of 50 000 TopTV decoders sold at R499 (including the installation fee) sold out on the same day Saturday when it went on sale. These first 50 000 TopTV decoders were manufactured in China, as is this second batch. TopTV would have received it anyway this week but would have kept it back - and has now moved up their decoder roll-out strategy. Vino Govender, ODM CEO told me last week the plan was to sell the first 50 000 during May, then have an additional 75 000 ready from June and then 10 000 per month. That has now obviously changed and ODM has sped the roll-out process up.
I asked today and ODM tells me that from July UEC - the company also manufacturing MultiChoice's DStv decoders - will be producing the TopTV decoders locally.
