Astros FY18 PATAMI 24% to RM771mn
Date Released:28 Mar 2018
Share
Tweet
Total customers 7% to 5.5mn, driven by NJOI
Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad
Result highlights for the financial year ended 31 January 2018 (FY18)
Astro showed resilience in a challenging market throughout the year, outperforming local and international peers with a 24% y-o-y growth in PATAMI to RM771mn, mainly due to higher EBITDA and favourable forex gain
Revenue -1% y-o-y to RM5.53bn
EBITDA 0.2% y-o-y to RM1.82bn
Strong FCF of RM1.36bn enabled fourth interim dividend of 3 sen per share and final dividend of 0.5 sen per share
Customer and Adex growth supported by NJOI
Total customers 7% y-o-y to 5.5mn
Best in class churn rate of 9.6%
Achieved ARPU of RM99.9
Total Adex 2% y-o-y to RM722mn
Go Shop grew 11% in revenue to RM290mn
Tun Zaki Azmi, Chairman of Astro, said: In a challenging business environment, Astro continues to deliver profits growth and strong cashflow generation. The Board is pleased to declare a fourth interim dividend of 3 sen per share and to recommend for shareholders' approval a final dividend of 0.5 sen per share.
Dato' Rohana Rozhan, Group Chief Executive Officer of Astro, said: The media landscape is undergoing aggressive shift towards digitalisation. In FY18, we accelerated our transformation to complement and enhance our skills, agility and capabilities as a consumer and content company. We executed strongly on key imperatives to transform Astro as a digital and data-driven company, to optimally invest and monetise our media assets, to achieve cost efficiencies through scale and best practices, to build on customer engagement by deepening our strengths in vernacular verticals, and to build a robust innovation pipeline. Last year's results were a culmination of this focus, delivering record profitability, even as revenue came under pressure given soft consumer sentiments and competitive headwinds.
Customers: Increased Reach and Deeper Engagement
Astro's total customers grew by 7% y-o-y from 5.1mn to 5.5mn, an increased TV household reach from 71% to 75% in FY18, primarily driven by NJOI. At the same time, NJOI's revenue grew by 21% y-o-y to RM100mn, as its skinny bundles and ala carte prepaid choices gained traction. Pay TV remains resilient despite competition, with global best in class churn of 9.6%, ARPU of RM99.9 and incoming ARPU of RM67.7.
Rohana said: Contrary to expectations in the era of cord-cutting, we are seeing deeper engagement with our customers across all our media assets; 23mn individuals in Astro households, 16.5mn radio listeners and 6.9mn average monthly unique visitors on Astro's digital properties. The number of households with connected PVRs have increased by 59% y-o-y to 804k and they are watching an average 50 hours of content weekly and downloaded 23mn On Demand programmes in FY18. Astro GO and NJOI Now apps are providing customers content mobility. As a result, Astro GO registered users increased by 45% y-o-y to 1.6mn; with active viewers watching an average 247 minutes of content weekly. This gives us the ability to optimally market and monetise innovative products and services personalised for households, individual customer personas and advertisers.
Adex: Achieved Growth in a Soft Market
Total Malaysia's Adex declined by 8% y-o-y from RM4.9bn to RM4.5bn. Astro's total Adex however, registered a 2% growth y-o-y from RM705mn to RM722mn. This includes Digital Adex which grew 17% from RM30mn to RM35mn. This leads to a share of 44% and 74% in TV Adex and Radex respectively. This trajectory is expected to continue with focussed efforts on providing solutions to both agencies and advertisers alike, driven increasingly by customer persona data.
Content: Focused on Vernacular, Nusantara Premium Originals and Live Sports
Rohana said, Our content cost of RM1.6bn in FY18 was 33% of our TV revenue and was within our guidance of between 32% and 35%. In major sporting years such as 2018, content cost is expected to be approximately two percentage points higher. In light of global competition, we have renegotiated key international content to ensure we aggregate choice content for our customers, encompassing all the requisite rights for On Demand, increased portability and box sets whilst securing better economics given these rights are rapidly being commoditised. At the same time, we have reinvested these savings into our content by deepening our commitment to vernacular and regional content, particularly in signature, premium local and Nusantara IPs as they clearly differentiate our product proposition vis a vis global competitors.
To this end, Astro has entered into win-win partnerships with local and regional content powerhouses such as Grup Majalah Karangkraf and Emtek, as well as talents, award-winning directors and producers like Ifa Isfansyah and Salman Aristo from Indonesia, Kiatkamon Iamphungporn from Thailand and Bianca Balbuena from the Philippines. This has resulted in the production of key original content IPs for ASEAN audiences like 3 A.M. Bangkok Ghost Stories, Gantung, Do[s]a and Doors. Astro's animation kids IP, Cam & Leon co-produced with Giggle Garage, has been licensed to Indonesia's Global TV and will be available on Amazon Prime Video in the US.
This year Astro further strengthens its position as the home of sports with live broadcast of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia , Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, Jakarta 2018 Asian Games and the 2018/2019 Premier League season in August. To amplify live sports conversation among fans in Malaysia on social media, Astro has partnered with Twitter to provide sports clips and content on Stadium Astro's twitter account.
Talent: Upskilling, reskilling and retooling our talent
Astro is committed to hiring talent with requisite skillset
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
21/10/2025
As Amazon's Prime Video prepares to launch its coverage of NBA basketball under a major new deal, Grup Mediapro has announced that it is working with the st...
21/10/2025
ATLANTA Good news for consumers using an Atlanta DTH receiver to watch ATSC 3.0: with a new software update, they will be able to blanket their homes with Wi-Fi...
21/10/2025
While recent news has been heavily focused on Hispanic migration into the U.S., The 2025 Hispanic Market Report from Claritas highlights the fact that this gr...
21/10/2025
MAIDENHEAD, UK RWS has hired Michael Wayne as its head of media and entertainment in Los Angeles where he will lead the company's media localization busines...
21/10/2025
Imagine Communications and Rohde & Schwarz today announced a definitive agreement under which Imagine will acquire Pixel Power Limited, a wholly owned subsidiar...
21/10/2025
Atlanta DTH (ADTH) today announced a major update that will expand the functionality of its NEXTGEN TV receiver by enabling gateway capabilities allowing viewer...
21/10/2025
Heartland Video Systems, Inc. (HVS), a premier video systems integration, consulting, and expert ATSC 3.0 implementation firm announces that it has partnered wi...
21/10/2025
QuickLink, the leading provider of award-winning video production and remote guest integration solutions, today announced the appointment of Austin Hinton as it...
21/10/2025
nternet connectivity startup Miri Technologies Inc. will use this week's NAB Show New York as the launch pad for its latest ground-breaking innovation, the ...
20/10/2025
Inside TAMS: How Time-Addressable Media Stores could redefine sports workflows By Paul Markham
Friday, October 17, 2025 - 08:57
Print This Story
A penalty...
20/10/2025
Transformational production: Inside TVN's remote production push for the DFL...
20/10/2025
How NBC Sports Transitioned Stamford Facility to One Format: 1080p HDRMulti-year plan harmonizes workflows, simplifies operationsBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial ...
20/10/2025
NBA on NBC' Studio Production Team Is Ready for Tip-Off With Coast-to-Coast...
20/10/2025
Under pressure: TVN CEO Markus Osthaus considers the German sports broadcasting ...
20/10/2025
(L-R) Maria Dizzia, Carmen Emmi, and Russell Tovey attend the Plainclothes pre...
20/10/2025
In March, we launched Concerts Near You to help listeners find concerts from their favorite artists. Since then, more than 3 million people have used it to disc...
20/10/2025
Em diversas cidades do Brasil, um movimento tem se fortalecido para celebrar o poder, a beleza e a profundidade da criatividade negra. O Dia AMPLIFIKA, agora em...
20/10/2025
In cities across Brazil, a movement is growing that celebrates the power, beauty, and depth of Black creativity. AMPLIFIKA Day, now in its fifth edition, return...
20/10/2025
Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft rendering...
20/10/2025
DENVER and MUNICH Imagine Communications today announced its plans to acquire Pixel Power Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Rohde & Schwarz. Financial terms of...
20/10/2025
LOS ANGELES G Morgan has joined Globecast, a provider of broadcast, media and entertainment managed services, as executive vice president of sales, Globecast Am...
20/10/2025
PLYMOUTH, Wisc. Heartland Video Systems and Zixi have partnered to enable broadcast-quality live video delivery over any IP network....
20/10/2025
A. R. Rahman on Facing Fear and Finding the Divine In an interview with Berklee President Jim Lucchese, the Oscar-winning composer reflects on how courage and...
20/10/2025
Monday 20 October 2025
To view this content, please enable our use of cookies. ...
20/10/2025
Rohde & Schwarz transfers Pixel Power to Imagine Communications Companies work collaboratively to ensure continuity and ongoing support for existing customers...
20/10/2025
RT 's Prime Time is set to host the final Presidential Election Debate this Tuesday night, October 21, providing an opportunity to hear directly from Irelan...
20/10/2025
NVIDIA and Google Cloud are expanding access to accelerated computing to transform the full spectrum of enterprise workloads, from visual computing to agentic a...
19/10/2025
Back to All News
Sins of Kujo' Comes to Life in New Live-Action Series Set for Spring 2026
Entertainment
19 October 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to cl...
18/10/2025
New England Sports Network (NESN) has chosen Harmonic, working with Astound Business Solutions, as its enterprise technology partner to transform primary distri...
18/10/2025
NEW ORLEANS, La. In the run-up to the start of the NBA season, WVUE-TV and Gray Local Media have announced a deal with DirecTV that will greatly expand access t...
18/10/2025
Berklee Celebrates 40 Years of the Fall Together Concert Faculty composers Bob Pilkington and Greg Hopkins are among the featured artists for this year's ...
17/10/2025
NEP Group Receives New Equity Investment From 26North Partners LP, Co-InvestorsCarlyle remains the largest shareholder as the company prepares for the futureBy ...
17/10/2025
Apple Lands Five-Year Deal for F1 Distribution in the U.S.Besides airing on Apple TV, the sport will be amplified on other Apple servicesBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Ed...
17/10/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Marshall Electronics' Bernie Keach on the Future of PTZ Camera...
17/10/2025
L2 Productions' REMI Facility in Austin Can Produce Content From AnywhereMusic festivals, sports events are produced via flypacks and remote control roomsBy...
17/10/2025
By Lucy Spicer
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival...
17/10/2025
(L-R) Christopher Meyer, Addison Timlin, Cooper Raiff, Lili Reinhart, Alyah Chan...
17/10/2025
M sica e arte se uniram em uma noite especial na semana passada na ZIV Gallery, ...
17/10/2025
Music and art came together for one special night last week at ZIV Gallery, an i...
17/10/2025
Spotify and FC Barcelona are extending our partnership through 2030, continuing a collaboration that's redefining how fans, players, and artists connect. Th...
17/10/2025
MURRIETA, Calif. The Sports Fishing Championship (SFC) has deployed DigitalGlue's creative.space storage platform to streamline video production by centrali...
17/10/2025
BELLEVUE, Wash. Football continued to cement its reputation as a bulwark of TV advertising in Q3 2025 with new data from iSpot that showed both the NFL and coll...
17/10/2025
The Sports Fishing Championship (SFC), the premier competitive saltwater fishing series, has transformed its production workflow by adopting creative.space, the...
17/10/2025
QuickLink, a leading provider of award-winning multi-camera video productions and remote contribution solutions, announces the release of StudioPro Version 4, ...
17/10/2025
Although the annual Grammy Awards celebration is best known for recognizing achievements in the recording industry, the show often proves a visual spectacle as ...
17/10/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leading provider of software-defined data storage and data services, has promoted Alex Dunfey to Chief Technology Officer (CTO) from his for...
17/10/2025
The University of Arizona (UofA) has significantly upgraded its broadcast communication infrastructure with the integration of Riedel Communications' advanc...
17/10/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that New England Sports Network (NESN), owned by Fenway Sports Group and Delaware North, has selected Harmonic as its en...
Astros FY18 PATAMI 24% to RM771mn 
