By Oghale Mafuru

MultiChoice, Africa’s leading entertainment company, has announced the strategic partnership with Combast NBCUniversal and SKY to relaunch Showmax with plans to provide exciting bouquet of contents and world-class viewing experience for its Pan-African subscribers.

The company made this announcement recently stating that, the new Showmax group which will be 70% owned by MultiChoice and 30% by NBCUniversal, will build on Showmax’s success to date with focus to create the leading streaming service in Africa.

Commenting on partnership, Calvo Mawela, Chief Executive Officer of MultiChoice stated: “We launched Showmax as the first African streaming service in 2015 and are extremely proud of its success to date. This agreement represents a great opportunity for our Showmax team to scale even greater heights by working with a leading global player in Comcast and its subsidiaries.

“The new business venture deepens an already strong relationship and builds on the Sky Glass technology partnership that we announced in September last year. We believe we are extremely well positioned to create a winning platform going forward.”

Dana Strong, Group Chief Executive Officer, Sky, commented, “This new collaboration in streaming and content with MultiChoice, NBCUniversal, and Sky takes our partnership to the next level in one of the world’s most vibrant, fastest growing markets.  Last year, we announced MultiChoice as a customer of the Sky Glass platform and now we are excited to help innovate its Showmax streaming service.”

On his part, Matt Strauss, Chairman, Direct-to-Consumer & International, NBCUniversal, added, “This partnership is an incredible opportunity to further scale the global presence of Peacock’s world-class streaming technology, as well as to introduce millions of new customers to extensive premium content from NBCUniversal and Sky’s stellar entertainment brands.”

According to the broadcast company, Showmax, relaunch will be powered by NBCUniversal’s Peacock technology platform, along with world-class content from NBCUniversal and Sky, offering audiences the best experience with local and global entertainment, as well as live matches of the English Premier League (EPL) football.