MultiChoice’s top ten risks

MultiChoice’s latest annual report has identified ten risks the company is actively addressing to protect its business.

The company explained that it applies a robust risk management approach in all areas of operation.

This includes macro-economic factors, organisational changes, and the competitive landscape, which are ever-changing.

“For this reason, we are committed to developing and implementing risk plans that identify and mitigate potential threats to strategy and operational objectives,” it said.

MultiChoice explained that these plans are continuously monitored and adapted to remain relevant as the environment changes.

As part of this process, MultiChoice has listed ten of the most significant risks the company faces.

• Piracy – With the increasing availability and adoption of broadband connectivity and reduced data costs, illegal viewing of content from pirate websites, pirate services, and social media feeds continues to rise.

• Regulatory and licensing – The level of regulatory and competition authority risks across the African continent continues to pose significant challenges.

• Negative macro-economic factors – Negative macro-economic factors, such as high unemployment, rising or elevated inflation, increasing interest rates, political uncertainty and ongoing electricity shortages, place pressure on the economies of the countries in which it operates.

• Currency depreciation and liquidity – The continuous and often sharp depreciation of local currencies, especially in Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, Ghana and Angola, against major foreign currencies such as the USD puts pressure on the cost of running its business.

• Disruption and competition – MultiChoice operates in a highly competitive and rapidly evolving industry, where disruption and competition from various sources, such as strong global and local competitors, free alternatives, as well as changes in viewing behaviour, pose significant risks to its business.

• Cybersecurity – The security of its information assets, including content, customer and employee information, is critical. Failure to protect these assets poses a legal and reputational risk.

• Taxation – Tax audit activity across Africa continues to increase, prompted by the need for improved revenue collections in poor-performing economies. These often lead to unreasonable and aggressive preliminary stances taken by revenue auditors.

• Talent and skills scarcity – To move into the next generation of media services, MultiChoice requires talent and competence to operate in a data-driven world of big data, machine learning and AI, all areas with skills shortages globally.

• Technology – Technology is integral to its strategy and operations, and receives continuous focus to ensure we can seamlessly align key strategic requirements with its customer journey.

• Impact of continuous load shedding – Load shedding has become the norm in South Africa.  High stages of load shedding continuously increase subscriber disconnections as they are unable to watch content for hours at a time.

MultiChoice is confident that it can continue to identify and address the risks the business faces to ensure long-term sustainability.