Thinus Ferreira
MultiChoice Kenya has seen a shocking DStv subscriber plunge in just a year that has almost completely wiped out MultiChoice Kenya's subscriber base, with an 84% drop in customers.
MultiChoice Kenya's Dstv subscribers fell off a cliff from 1.195 million subscribers in June 2024 to just 188 948 Dstv subscribers by June 2025.
That is a massive drop of 84.2% in East Africa in what is MultiChoice's third largest pay-TV market after South Africa and Nigeria in West Africa.
MultiChoice Kenya's digital terrestrial television (DTT) subscribers plunged a shocking 88.7%, with GOtv subscribers falling from 2.79 million in June 2024 to just 362 543 GOtv subscribers by June 2025.
MultiChoice Kenya's decimated subscriber numbers are contained within the latest Broadcasting Services Report for the third quarter of 2025 of the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK).
While rival StarTimes from China had a lot fewer DTT subscribers than MultiChoice, the drastic plunge in GOtv subscribers mean that StarTimes at 492 330 subscribers now have more DTT customers in Kenya than MultiChoice.
On satellite pay-TV StarTimes now also has more subscribers in Kenya than MultiChoice with 195 948 subscribers, although it also saw a 45.9% decline from a year ago when it still had 361 953 satellite pay-TV subscribers.
MultiChoice Kenya hiked DStv prices by over 5% in the East Africa country in November 2024 - the 4th steep increase in two years, after which DStv customers became very vocal that they're cancelling DStv.
Adding insult to injury and driving DStv cancellations have been the utter lack of any real explanations to existing and potential DStv Kenya consumers about what's behind the steep increases.
After the last round of DStv price hikes customers spoke out across social media, like Michelle Katami who called Dstv "greedy and uncontrollable": "You cannot increase pricing, whenever, wherever you feel like. What is your excuse this time? DStv subscription in Kenya is overpriced. Only sports channels matter to me. MultiChoice Kenya needs to be regulated at this point".
Ron Peter asked MultiChoice Kenya to "provide justification for the increases in your prices. Otherwise I haven't seen any improvements in content except for SuperSport channels. Over the years you have remained stagnant. We welcome other pay-TV into the Kenyan market".
