Disney+ Will Expand to 42 Countries this Summer

Disney+ has announced that South Africa will be part of a 42-country launch later this year.

South Africa will be the first and only country in sub-Saharan Africa to access the video streaming service.

Disney+ will launch within a few months in another 42 countries, including South Africa, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and St. Helena, the video streaming service confirmed on Wednesday.

As the most developed and sophisticated video streaming market in Africa, South Africa is the first and only country in sub-Saharan Africa to get Disney+.

St. Helena, part of the British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic Ocean, is also getting Disney+ this winter.

In the past two years, South African video consumers have been highly vocal about being excluded from access to Disney+ as the Mouse House launched its streamer in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and other comparable markets.

Meanwhile, South African consumers have been snapping up Disney-branded merchandise from content only available on Disney+, showing a high awareness and brand recognition of shows and characters like The Mandalorian, likely due to pirate viewing of Disney+ content in the territory.

On Wednesday, Disney confirmed that Disney+ will launch in 42 countries and 11 new territories this winter, including South Africa, where Netflix, MultiChoice's Showmax, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV+ compete for scale and subscribers.

Netflix SA, MultiChoice, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+ are all ramping up investment and their plans to increase their local market presence in South Africa and across sub-Saharan Africa as they try to snap up video consumers and get them to sample their subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services.

With the oversaturated American market, streamers like Netflix and ones that haven't yet launched in South Africa like WarnerMedia's HBO Max, ViacomCBS' Paramount+, NBCUniversal's Peacock, Discovery+ and others, are finally feeling the pressure to look internationally to expand their subscriber bases.

There is no firm date yet for the launch of Disney+ in South Africa this winter, but it will be any time from June.

Disney is also staying tight-lipped about the cost, although it's likely that The Walt Disney Company will try to make a splash as a late-market entry in South Africa and to quickly gain ground on Netflix SA and Showmax with an introductory price offer that would undercut and come in below the current Netflix and Showmax pricing.

The complete list of countries that Disney+ will launch in this winter include:

1.    Albania

2.    Algeria

3.    Andorra

4.    Bahrain

5.    Bosnia and Herzegovina

6.    Bulgaria

7.    Croatia

8.    Czech Republic

9.    Egypt

10.  Estonia

11.  Greece

12.  Hungary

13.  Iraq

14.  Israel

15.  Jordan

16.  Kosovo

17.  Kuwait

18.  Latvia

19.  Lebanon

20.  Libya

21.  Liechtenstein

22.  Lithuania

23.  Malta

24.  Montenegro

25.  Morocco

26.  North Macedonia

27.  Oman

28.  Palestine

29.  Poland

30.  Qatar

31.  Romania

32.  San Marino

33.  Saudi Arabia

34.  Serbia

35.  Slovakia

36.  Slovenia

37.  South Africa

38.  Tunisia

39.  Turkey

40.  United Arab Emirates

41.  Vatican City

42.  Yemen

January 28, 2022