The tracker and map have been updated as May gets underway.
As a reminder, and for newer subscribers, this will be updated monthly, or sooner if newly identified activity materially changes market conditions. Over time, it's intended to become a first point of reference, helping users see how pricing, distribution, regulation, and ownership evolve across African markets and how those changes interact with the rest of the world.
As time passes, the oldest entries will drop off the visible timeline and map, though they will remain available in longer-range timeline views and historical assessments.
Seven new events have been added since the April update, bringing the total to 41 events across 54 African countries.
The biggest development since the last update: on April 30, Showmax officially shut down across 44 Sub-Saharan African markets — we knew that was coming. Existing subscribers were offered DStv Stream Compact at R99/month for one year. Showmax Originals have been moved to a dedicated section within DStv Stream.
Meanwhile, Canal+ confirmed it is simplifying DStv's product and pricing structure following its acquisition by MultiChoice. In South Africa, customers currently face up to 17 price points depending on whether they use satellite or streaming. Channel renaming and consolidation are expected.
A development I overlooked in last month's update: Canal+ Africa CEO David Mignot confirmed in March that the company intends to extend its existing Netflix bundle partnership from Francophone Africa — where it has been live since July 2025 — to English-speaking sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa. No timeline has been confirmed.
Under the existing bundling arrangement, eligible Canal+ subscribers can access Netflix as part of certain Canal+ subscriptions. If that model reaches Anglophone markets, Canal+ and DStv could become a major acquisition and billing channel for Netflix in those countries. Consequently, Netflix access in Africa can expand within Canal+ and DStv packages while Netflix's commissioning and acquisition of African originals remains limited. More households may receive Netflix; few new African projects may receive Netflix money.
The one company with both the distribution infrastructure and the commissioning appetite to fill that gap is Canal+ itself, which already holds equity stakes in production companies across Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Rwanda, and Senegal.
In satellite internet, two threads of note. The first is Amazon. Most people know Amazon as a retailer or a cloud computing company, but it has spent several years and billions of dollars building a satellite internet network called Project Kuiper — now rebranded Amazon LEO — that works on the same basic principle as Elon Musk's Starlink: a large constellation of satellites in low earth orbit providing broadband internet to areas without reliable fixed infrastructure.
Earlier this year, Nigeria's communications regulator granted Amazon LEO a seven-year operating permit. In April, the company filed a license application in Kenya. It has not launched commercial service in either market yet, but the regulatory groundwork is being laid. Starlink, the only major low-earth-orbit satellite internet operator active in Africa, now has a rival.
The second thread is Starlink itself. The service launched in the Central African Republic in March, its latest market entry on a continent where it now operates in more than two dozen countries. South Africa remains the most notable exception. Starlink cannot operate there because South African law requires communications licensees to meet Black economic empowerment ownership requirements — rules designed to address the racial concentration of economic ownership that persists from the apartheid era.
In April, the government body that oversees those ownership rules opened a public consultation on a broader review of the ICT sector's Black economic empowerment code, with submissions due May 20. The outcome of that review could affect the conditions under which Starlink — and other foreign-owned operators — could eventually apply for a license.
Visit Africa Streaming & Infrastructure Watch. The "Interactive Map" button is at the top of the page. Both the timeline and map are best viewed on a large screen, though each is also mobile-friendly.
