Canal+ Brass on Outlasting Amazon and Netflix in Africa (Addendum)

OTT penetration in sub-Saharan Africa remains under 5% by most estimates. Fibre infrastructure is limited. The competitive landscape, while growing, remains structurally different from mature markets in Europe and North America. Canal+ executives, speaking at a recent industry event, described these conditions not as obstacles but as structural advantages — a moat that they believe will outlast the current push by Amazon and Netflix into the region.

The argument, in brief: Canal+ has spent decades building distribution infrastructure, local content relationships, and subscriber management systems calibrated to the specific payment and connectivity realities of sub-Saharan Africa. Amazon and Netflix, whatever their content budgets, are working from a standing start on those dimensions.