Netflix’s interest in Africa has been apparent for a while now, ever since the Streaming service began acquiring African content in 2015 many speculated it would make a play for the audience here. They were not wrong!

The service has been working to diversify it’s content for sometime, basically putting it’s hands into a bit of everything and doing it’s best to acquire an audience from  everywhere. This may have placed it in direct competition with already established local firms including Multichoice and the way things are looking they’re all geared up to go!

Multichoice has long been leading when it comes to Africa and it seems poised to assert itself. Netflix may indeed pose a threat and given it’s aggressive ad campaigns has shown no indication of backing down.

The fact is either way it swings Africans are likely to benefit immensely. Netflix’s increased efforts at acquiring locally made content is opening up opportunities for local producers and in a sense gives them a certain validation. The likes of Lionheart and Beast of no nation were sensations and for good reason.

They may have given the world a new perspective when it comes to African content! The likes of Iroko have done exceptionally well when it comes to pushing Africa but it is or was quite the novelty for African content to be made readily available on a platform like Netflix.

This is only the beginning as all indicators show that the streaming service is poised to carve out it’s spot on the continent. It is not surprising that local content creators are quite welcoming of this, everybody wants a piece of the 8 billion but whether Netflix will be able to pull it off still remains to be seen.

The likes of Multichoice seem ready to hold on firmly to their own subscriber base and may not be eager to share but as the internet infrastructure on the continent continues to improve there may be very little they can do about it.

So far Netflix’s efforts seem well received and we’re yet to see how things will pan out but early pointers seem to indicate it’s a win for the African streamer!