ShowMax spokesperson Richard Boorman confirmed to Fin24 that the service is now live in 36 African countries ranging from Botswana in the south to Ethiopia and Djibouti in the north.

The service, though, is not available in two of Africa’s biggest economies: Nigeria and Egypt.

It’s unclear if ShowMax has plans to launch in Nigeria, but Boorman told Fin24 that the company is undergoing a “phased roll-out”.

ShowMax also has offices in Johannesburg and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). But the company, at this stage, has no plan to expand to any countries in the Middle East, Boorman told Fin24.

Apart from being available in Africa, ShowMax offers content from Afrikaans television station kykNET in 28 countries ranging from Australia to the United Kingdom and United States.

In total, ShowMax is now available in 65 countries.

ShowMax first launched in South Africa in August 2015, months before US streaming service Netflix switched on its global service in January this year.

Naspers, which is one of South Africa’s biggest companies by market capitalisation, also owns satellite pay television company MultiChoice.

*Fin24 is part of Media24 which is owned by Naspers.

Fin24