by Thinus Ferreira
China's StarTimes pay-TV service, operating as StarSat in South Africa will be hiking its subscription prices by 10% from July.
StarSat which is hiking subscription prices far above the country's inflation rate, blames inflation and South Africa's worsening economy for what it calls the first StarSat price hike in four years.
StarSat, formerly known as TopTV and that competes with MultiChoice's DStv service which hikes its prices for various packages every year, last increased its prices in 2018 due to the government's 1% VAT increase.
From July the StarSat Special Package will increase by R11 or 10.09% from R109 to R120.
The StarSat Super Package will increase by R21 or 10.04% from R209 to R230.
The StarSat Max Package offering over 140 TV channels will increase by R31 or 10.36% from R299 to R330.
The Midrand-based company tells me that "StarSat has during these past periods worked tirelessly to
absorb the cost of doing business with zero-price increase policy because we
are a caring organisation that identifies with the economic plight of the South
African consumer".
"Unfortunately, due to sustained economic decline in South
Africa mainly attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic, rising inflationary costs and
major disruptions in global capital flows, we are left with little choice but
to implement a marginal price adjustment."
"Our intended price adjustment will allow us to continue to
serve our loyal customer base and to improve our content offering specifically
as it pertains to local and international general entertainment and sports
content."
"The nominal price increase will also bolster StarSat capacity to
expand its production infrastructure for local language versioning of world-class drama series and telenovela in order to continue our service to
under-resourced rural and semi-rural communities in South Africa."