The company has signed a deal with satellite operator SES — which already covers 40 African countries — to provide satellite TV, writes Jevans Nyabiage

Samsung Electronics has announced plans to unveil new TV sets that have built-in satellite decoders, allowing viewers access to over 60 channels for free.

The service will be available on high-end Samsung LED TVs, and will provide access to 60 free-to-air TV channels (30 English and 30 French).

In what is seen as a value added service to attract sales for its high-end sets, no decoder or monthly payment will be necessary, although users would still need a satellite dish.

Samsung’s move could potentially make it the biggest provider of satellite TV services on the continent, taking MultiChoice’s DStv head-on.

The LED-backlit LCD flat-panel TVs, known as the Samsung LED TV Free Satellite, will initially be available to consumers in Kenya and five other African countries including Nigeria, Senegal, CÙte d’Ivoire, Cameroon and Ghana from August this year. Samsung says it will add new channels and more regions in the following year.

The company has signed a deal with satellite operator SES — which already covers 40 African countries — to provide the new service. The company made the announcement during its annual Africa Forum event in Cape Town, South Africa on Thursday last week.

This comes at a time when Kenya plans to switch over from analogue to digital terrestrial broadcasting with its initial self-imposed deadline of June 2012 fast approaching.

Kenya’s migration to digital terrestrial broadcasting has been a torrid affair, with furious debates over standards, decisions being reversed and fights over allocation of frequencies.

Danny Kim, director of TV and Audio Visual at Samsung Electronics said viewers will have to aim their dish antennas at the Astra 2A or Astra 4B satellites.

He said through their agreement with SES, they will offer free satellite TV through Astra 2A to French-speaking countries, while Astra 4B will be used for English-speaking countries.

"This is going to create a revolution in digital TV penetration in the continent," said Robert Ngeru, Commercial Director for Samsung East and Central Africa.

"In East Africa, we will start with Kenya, and then move to neighbouring countries."

The free satellite TVs will also come with Samsung’s LED TV SurgeSafe+ technology suited specifically to the African environment — an environment prone to power surges, humidity, lightening.

Christoph Limmer, SES’s senior director of marketing development and marketing in Africa, says the deal with Samsung will bring digital content to more African consumers and encourage African broadcasters to launch more free-to-air content in the region.

"In serving more than 40 African countries, we are well aware of the huge demand for greater services — both quality and quantity," says Limmer.

Affordable and competitive

Samsung did not reveal the pricing details for the satellite TVs, but said they would be "competitive".

In preparation for the launch, SES and Samsung will jointly arrange training sessions with distribution partners and installers to ensure the proper connection of the TV device to the satellite dish. Both companies will also run a joint marketing campaign in June.

"The Samsung LED TV Free Satellite is our contribution to the continent’s efforts to ‘go digital’ — providing African consumers with greater choice and broadcasters with the opportunity to grow the region’s media industry," says Dae Hee Kim, Regional Product Manager at Samsung Africa.

At the forum, the firm also launched a myriad of new other technology devices ranging from smartphones, digital cameras and camcorders, fridges, television sets and washing machines.

The Korean firm is aggressively courting African consumers with its "Built for Africa" line of products, which features energy-saving electrical appliances built to withstand high temperatures and erratic power supply.

Samsung’s director of consumer electronics for West Africa, Sunil Kumar, says it is important for products not to only "survive Africa", but to be "built for Africa" specifically.

Kwang Kee Park, Samsung’s president for Africa said the company aims to boost its revenue from Africa to $10 billion by 2015.

But Park said that would depend on Samsung being able to develop more locally relevant products at cheaper prices.

"Every year we can come up with another $1 billion in business," he said. "But it really depends on how we develop more locally relevant products and make the products more affordable," he said.

"This year not only will we continue to maintain growth in key regions but so too we are focused on targeting growth of 100 per cent in West, East and Southern Africa."

MARKET Perspectives

• The region is increasingly seeing more players enter into the PayTV market.

• This has, however, done little to shake the market stranglehold by South African-based pay-TV, DStv.

• GTV, which was touted as the first real challenge to MultiChoice in 2007 quickly folded leaving customers stuck with junk equipment.

• Another player, Smart TV closed shop early this year after it ran into financial problems and lack of in-house content.

• Currently, DStv has more than 120,000 subscribers, and Zuku has just about 20,000.