How Africa streamed the FIFA World Cup Qatar on Showmax Pro

The World Cup set new live-streaming records for Showmax Pro, with football fans glued to their devices as they streamed the highly anticipated quarterfinals, semi-finals and finals of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, courtesy of SuperSport and streamed in HD and 4K.

In the initial stages of the event, subscribers were more likely to stream the match highlights that were available on demand, but as the tournament neared its conclusion, streaming live increased.

The nail-biting final between Argentina and France saw the highest number of concurrent streams of a live event in Showmax Pro’s history, a more than 20% increase in viewership. The number of new subscribers to Showmax Pro increased steadily across the month of December peaking on 18 December 2022, the day of the final.

“We’re incredibly proud that Showmax successfully streamed the entire World Cup without a hitch and delivered 4K to our subscribers for the first time across the continent. We look forward to bringing even more of the world’s best sport to our customers in 2023, starting with the Premier League, Serie A and LaLiga, and the DStv Premiership,” says Barry Dubovsky, COO for Connected Video at MultiChoice.

Top matches of the World Cup

Based on the total number of users, these were the most-streamed matches of the tournament.

1. Argentina vs France
2. France vs Morocco
3. Croatia vs Brazil

African streamers’ top 10 favourite teams

Based on the total number of match views during the group phase across all Showmax Pro markets in sub-Saharan Africa, these were the most popular teams:

• France
• Morocco
• Argentina
• Brazil
• Portugal
• Netherlands
• England
• United States
• Ecuador
• Ghana

Penalties drove subscriber and viewership spikes

An interesting trend was seeing the impact of penalties on the number of new subscribers signing up for Showmax Pro, as well as on viewership. In every match that went to penalties, there were significant spikes as fans signed up and started live streaming.

Now that the tournament has come to an end, 2023 brings a wealth of international football to watch, including the Premier League action this weekend – on Saturday, Man U takes on Man City in the Manchester derby, and on Sunday, Tottenham faces Arsenal in the North London derby. All the Serie A and LaLiga games are also currently streaming live on Showmax Pro, as well as the DStv Premiership matches, and the TotalEnergies African Nations Championship kicks off on 13 January.

Why Showmax Pro?

Showmax Pro is a streaming service available for Showmax subscribers in Africa that bundles the Showmax entertainment offering with music channels, news and live sports streaming from SuperSport.

Subscribers can live stream the latest seasons of the English Premier League, LaLiga, Serie A, TotalEnergies African Nations Championship, UEFA Europa and UEFA Conference leagues.

The platform also offers a wide range of other live sports events including athletics, professional boxing, and the world’s biggest marathons. Visit showmax.com to learn more or to subscribe to Showmax Pro.

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