MultiChoice’s cybersecurity powerhouse

Irdeto, wholly owned by MultiChoice, is a world leader in digital platform cybersecurity, servicing customers around the globe.

Most people think of MultiChoice as the company behind DStv and Showmax. However, it owns many other businesses, including the impressive Irdeto.

Irdeto was founded in 1969 by the Dutch media engineer Pieter den Toonder. In the nineties, the company established itself as a big player in the media security market.

The company established itself as a leader in helping pay-TV operators secure their broadcast and monetise their services.

MultiChoice, through MIH Group, acquired a 49% stake in Irdeto in 1997. It later bought the rest of the company.

Today, Irdeto is the world leader in digital platform cybersecurity and provides solutions to video entertainment, video games, and connected industries.

• It safeguards premium video entertainment content from piracy and unauthorised distribution, ensuring maximum revenue and viewer engagement.
• Denuvo by Irdeto is the world’s leading games protection and anti-piracy technology, helping game publishers and developers secure PC, console and mobile games.
• Its connected transport products offer scalable and secure automotive, commercial fleets, and construction access control systems.
• Imperto by Irdeto is a contractor enablement platform that serves the rental company industry.

The company is headquartered in the Netherlands and employs around 750 people in 10 locations globally.

The company has subsidiaries in many countries, including South Africa, the United States, Canada, India, and Australia.

Irdeto focuses strongly on innovation in the cybersecurity sector and boasts 388 patents, with another 128 pending.

It was the first to market for over-the-top (OTT) technologies such as hosted Widevine services, DRM-based concurrent stream management, and key rotation.

It also achieved a technological breakthrough with platform re-usability and scalability for super aggregators using Android TV or RDK-V.

Irdeto Experience, its video streaming aggregation platform, won the Streaming Innovation of the Year category in the 2024 Streaming Media European Innovation Awards.

Irdeto’s technology protects 6 billion devices globally and secures around 7.2 billion monthly streams.

Its client list of 419 customers in over 75 countries includes the who’s who in the entertainment industry.

These clients include Netflix, Paramount+, Charter, AWS, Liberty Global, MultiChoice, Foxtel, Sky News, and Hyundai China.

Irdeto’s financial performance

Irdeto has become the global market leader in managed security services for video, with a 22% market share.

Irdeto grew its market share and delivered increased revenue with external customers in all three of its market segments; Video Entertainment, Gaming and Connected Transport.

External video entertainment revenue in the 2024 financial year was up by 4% compared to the previous year.

This was due to strategic wins, such as a new managed services agreement concluded with Foxtel in Australia, and the strong performance of existing customers.

The gaming business grew 12% year-on-year, while the connected transport segment increased revenue by 119%.

“Our focus is to increase market share by winning Tier-1 customers in the video entertainment segment,” Irdeto said.

“We have steadily been making progress against our market share targets over the last three years.”

It highlighted that despite a strong in-year performance, this segment continues to face a challenging trend due to a decline in global pay-TV subscriptions.

“We expect this trend to last for several more years, although it is partially offset by a strong performance supporting new entrants providing streaming services,” it said.

MultiChoice’s latest financial results for the six months ended 30 September 2024 said Irdeto delivered an encouraging improvement in its external business.

It said Irdeto secured a major Asian customer and expanded managed services with a key customer in Australasia.

On a standalone basis, combining external and intercompany revenues, Irdeto’s revenues were down 3% in US dollars, with a 38% decline in trading profit.