Astro drives Grow in Q,05

Astro drives Growth in Q1,2015

Date Released:17 Jun 2015

Share

Tweet

KUALA LUMPUR, 17th June 2015 - Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad (Astro) announced yesterday its first quarter results of the financial year ending 31 January 2016, with a 6% y-o-y growth in revenue to RM1.3bn, a 7% rise in EBITDA to RM472mn and a 31% increase in PATAMI to RM168mn.

Tun Zaki Azmi, Chairman of Astro said, The Group is continuing to fulfil its commitment to shareholder value creation and progressive dividend policy. On that note, the Board is pleased to declare a 22% higher first interim dividend of 2.75 sen per share.

Dato' Rohana Rozhan, Chief Executive Officer of Astro said, As a content and consumer company, we are leveraging on the breadth and depth of our offerings across the Watch, Listen, Read and Shop' platforms to drive growth in a soft consumer market. Through our dual model proposition of Pay-TV and NJOI, our customer base grew by 525k y-o-y to 4.5mn households, representing 64% of total Malaysian TV households (Q1FY15: 58%). NJOI is increasingly well-received among Malaysians, welcoming its millionth customer in Q1FY16. We continue to strengthen content on NJOI by launching two HD channels, Astro Xi Yue HD and Astro Maya HD, as well as providing a variety of prepaid options to purchase premium content.

Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) rose to RM99 from RM97, driven by higher take-up of bundled packs and value added products and services. Take-up of services such as HD rose by 8% y-o-y to 1.9mn, Personal Video Recorder (PVR) increased by 28% to 746k, Multiroom expanded 17% to 393k, while the number of Superpack and Valuepack subscribers increased by 4% and 49% to 959k and 363k respectively.

Advertising income grew by 11% y-o-y to RM136mn, from RM122mn in Q1FY15. Astro's multi-tainment platforms continue to draw in TV viewers and radio listeners with its diverse content featuring the best of local and international entertainment, sports, news and talent. By providing customised and targeted solutions for advertisers, Astro's share of TV Adex and Radex continues to grow at 34% and 63% respectively.

Dato' Rohana added, We aim to drive usage of connected boxes and PVRs to increase consumption of on-demand content, namely box sets, movies and catch up TV. Our customers now have significant content available on demand, including Game of Thrones', The Lord of the Rings', Harry Porter' and many more. Our Watch, Listen, Read and Shop' offerings are available seamlessly across TV and mobile platforms for Malaysians, who are increasingly consuming content on multiple devices at home and on the go.

The number of linear channels and on-demand content on Astro on the Go (AOTG) are growing. New innovative feature that enables users to download and store their favourite shows onto their devices will be launched soon. AOTG downloads increased by 47% y-o-y to 1.4mn while weekly viewing time rose from 88 minutes a year ago to over 110 minutes. We are delighted to share that Astro Oasis, our Islamic lifestyle channel, will be free for all Malaysians during Ramadhan via AOTG. Our over one million NJOI customers can also look forward to watch their favourite channels anytime, anywhere, on NJOI on the Go soon.

We also launched Raku, Malaysia's very own radio and music streaming service on mobile and web. Through Raku, users can stream millions of songs and videos, listen to more than 20 live radio stations, playlists curated by top local artistes including Yuna, Paper Plane Pursuit, Dasha Logan and many more, localised talk shows and live performances at No Black Tie and Laundry on digital devices. In addition, 17 e-magazines are now available on our Go Read app, while Go Shop is changing the way Malaysians shop with a unique 24/7 shopping experience on TV, mobile and online platforms.

In conclusion Dato' Rohana said, By offering more choice and value to Malaysians, Astro is delivering sustainable growth in a challenging consumer market. We remain disciplined managers of costs and will focus on shareholder value creation by growing our subscriber base, ARPU, as well as share of advertising.

## The End ##

LINK:	http://www.astro.com.my/mediaroom/articledetails.aspx?id=282&title=ast...
	See more stories from astro

Most recent headlines