South Africa’s streaming landscape has come a long way in a very short time. Only ten years ago, the country was still eagerly awaiting the arrival of Netflix, before the world’s biggest streamer eventually turned up in 2016. Sure, local player Showmax was busy making a name for itself, but it struggled to find its footing. It has since transformed into an industry giant with some of the biggest names in the biz backing it.
Netflix leads the streaming charge
Now that most of the biggest streamers in the world – Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, and Apple TV – have planted their feet firmly in South Africa, you might be wondering which SVOD (subscription video on demand) service attracts the most eyeballs. Using Q1 2025 data captured by JustWatch, it’s clear who runs the show.
For those unfamiliar, JustWatch is an SVOD aggregator comprising roughly 430,000 South African users. It tracks what users are watching and, more importantly, which services they’re subscribing to. “As usual, we based our report on the 430k JustWatch users in South Africa selecting their streaming services, clicking out to streaming offers, and marking titles as seen.”
Arguably, the biggest blot on JustWatch’s reports is a definitive lack of data for one of South Africa’s largest streamers – Disney+, which skews the final results a fair bit. We’ve asked JustWatch why this is the case, but have not heard back by the time of publication.
Netflix remains the most subscribed-to service in South Africa, claiming roughly 28% of the market share. While an impressive figure, it’s a different story from JustWatch’s year-end results for 2024, which showed that Netflix held a firmer grip over SA’s population with a 29% market share. Expect that number to dip even further by next quarter now that the streaming behemoth has recently introduced local price hikes.
Hot on its heels is Amazon’s Prime Video, boasting an impressive 25% market share, unchanged from JustWatch’s 2024 streaming results – no doubt due to its affordable pricing scheme in SA. Despite losing a massive 2% of its market share compared to last year, Showmax has remained a major thorn in the side of its competitors, holding onto 24% market share.
Taking everybody by surprise is MUBI in the fourth slot, securing itself a massive 2% increase over the rest in just three months, ultimately leaving the service with 13% of South Africans signed up. It’s a less-heated battle below, with Apple TV+ losing around half of its subscribers locally with a meagre 3% share. Curiosity Stream takes the final spot with 2% market share. JustWatch attributes the remaining 6% to “Other” streamers operating in SA.
