Receptions of pay television service providers were buzzing with football fans yesterday as hundreds thronged to buy television or digital decoders in a festive mood ahead of the Fifa World Cup that kicks off today.

Sales more than doubled, according to the pay-TV service providers, because of the surge in public demand.

The world’s biggest sporting event is hosted by Brazil from today to July 13, with 32 national teams from around the world battle it out for eventful Gold-plaited most coveted trophy.

"Yesterday alone, a number of television subscribers queuing on at our workstations to buy new decoders or even pay for subscription, tripled the sales we made in the last two months,” said one sales executive.

Respective service provider’s outlets, around the City of Kigali reported that the sales had shot up.

In various parts of the city where decoders and televisions sets are sold, the demand has been too high in the recent weeks, compared to the previous months.

"We have just made a call to the main Pay-TV service providers, to send us more decoders; now that we are left with only three in the stock and the clients are still coming. It is very true, World Cup has boosted our sales. In this month, we have more than tripled our daily sales. This week alone, sales have more than tripled compared to the previous months,” said Leornad Ndacyayisenga, pay-TV dealer in the city centre.

Rwanda has a wider choice of pay-TV service providers, including Multichoice DStv, Canal+ and GOtv, StarTimes, among others.

These companies facilitate the acquisition of signal coverage hardware and software, value addition, among other services.

The frenzy

Emma Bizimana, a taxi conductor, had been saving one-third of his daily earning since January to raise Rwf39,000 for a new television decoder.

"I was told that some football matches were going to be played at 1 am, in the morning. It’s very hard to find a place to watch such late games in my area. So I decided to save to be able to buy myself a decoder and a television set.

‘It is exciting that I got myself these gadgets in my room. I surely did not want to miss a single game in world cup,” said Bizimana, a resident of Nyamirambo.

Augustin Muhirwa, the human resource manager at Tele10 group of companies (which has DStv, Canal+, Tungatv and GOtv dealership in Rwanda), yesterday, said there have been a couple of incentives and subsidies put in place due to public’s high demand.

"I am the Human resource Manager, but I am now engaged in sales because of the number of clients coming in. This is because of the World Cup opening tomorrow (today).”

"We have opened up even new shops around the city, and got more dealers countrywide. We are told, the sales statics have similarly increased, in our provincial centres,” said Muhirwa.

Last Month, Tele10 partnered with MTN to enable customers to pay their DStv, Canal+ and GOtv subscription fees through MTN Mobile Money. 

Muhirwa said subscribers are in the same positions to pay-TV subscription through Airtel and Tigo money transfer services.

"DStv has been subsidised to Rwf70,500 from Rwf99,000, GOtv has given extra two months free offer, Canal+ decoder has dropped from Rwf45,000 to Rwf30,000 and prices for other pay-TV decoders has significantly dropped,” Muhirwa said.

Rwanda Television will also screen all the matches live. 

According to Kennedy Munyangeyo, director of Rwanda Television, the national broadcaster has acquired transmission rights to telecast all the football matches during World Cup.

"We have got exclusive rights from African Union Broadcasting (AUB), Fifa’s official partner for World Cup, to air all matches, and even show recorded matches, for those games that would be played at the same time,” Munyangeyo said. 

"We have put up an exclusive studio set, courtesy of GOtv and MTN, specifically designed for RTV World cup pundits. The preparations are all set, we are waiting for the kick off game.”