Media, entertainment poised for fast growth

SOUTH Africa’s entertainment and media market is expected to expand at a compound annual rate of 10.9 percent over the next five years, which is one of the highest growth rates worldwide, according to the PwC South African Entertainment and Media Outlook 20132017, published yesterday.

The market is expected generate total revenue R175 billion in 2017.

Vicki Myburgh, the entertainment and media industries leader for PwC Southern Africa, said although the traditional, non-digital media would continue to dominate overall entertainment and media spending in the country over the next five years, most of the growth would be derived from digital technology.

But Myburgh added: “The landscape now won’t become unrecognisable overnight.”

This is the fourth edition of the outlook, which provides to of forecasts for 12 entertainment and media segments. PwC Southern Africa is a unit of global accounting, tax and advisory services firm PwC.

Consumer and advertising spending is being driven by the emerging middle class. Since 2005, the black middle class has more than doubled from 1.7 million people to 4.2 million people. The white middle class has remained stable at 3 million people, according to the Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing report in May.

Mobile gaming would experience fast growth as comparatively lower levels of broadband access would restrict the online gaming industry, the PwC study found. Mobile gaming is focused on smartphones and tablets.

Mobile internet subscriber penetration was 29 percent at present and subscriber numbers were expected to grow by about 62 percent to 32.5 million by 2017, Myburgh said. Growth in connected portable devices, led by tablets, smartphones and laptops, is fuelling the expanded internet usage. Desktop PC internet access is in decline, according to the PwC data.

The film industry is also expected to grow as a result of increased internet access. Sales of electronic home videos are expected to reach R1.5bn in 2017 and account for 66 percent of the home video market.

Advertising accounted for 31 percent of the industry’s revenue last year and is expected to drop to 26 percent by 2017 as the market expands.

But because of the low penetration of broadband, advertising in print media has not