Kuala Lumpur − Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad (Astro) announced its financial results for the financial year ended 31 January 2015. Revenue grew by 9% y-o-y to RM5.2bn, EBITDA improved by 12% to RM1.8bn and PATAMI increased by 16% to RM519mn.
Astro’s performance was underpinned by expansion in customer base. Sales of value-added products and services also increased ARPU, and control of costs resulted in improved profitability. The performance of GO SHOP, a new homeshopping service, was also encouraging.
Tun Zaki Azmi, Chairman of Astro said, “The Group continues to execute on its business plans, by delivering growth in profits and cashflow; generating consistent returns for shareholders in terms of value and dividends. Accordingly, the Board is pleased to declare a fourth interim dividend of 2.25 cent per share, and subject to shareholders’ approval at the upcoming AGM, a final dividend of 2.00 cent per share. This brings the total dividend in FY15 to 11.0 cent per share, a 22% increase over the FY14 pay out.”
Dato’ Rohana Rozhan, Chief Executive Officer of Astro said, “We have been able to generate growth in FY15 in spite of a soft consumer market. This is driven by our ability to provide depth and breadth of choices to all Malaysians. We see momentum in take-up of our products and services across our pay-TV, NJOI, Astro on the Go (AOTG) and OTT platforms. Our customer base grew by 547k to 4.4mn representing 63% penetration of total Malaysian TV households (FY14: 56%). ARPU rose to RM99 from RM96, as more customers subscribed to HD, PVR, Multiroom, Superpack and Valuepack.”
Take-up of services such as HD rose 16% to 1.9mn, PVR increased by 34% to 715k, Multiroom expanded 24% to 386k, while Superpack and Valuepack subscribers rose 10% and 78% to 967k and 348k respectively.
In FY15, Astro launched 12 new channels, increasing its total channels to 184, of which 50 are in HD. Today our TV offering is further strengthened by new packages like Astro Superpack Plus, the new Korean Pack, as well as a new subscription VOD service, Astro Plus.
Dato’ Rohana said, “We continue to give customers choice and value through our free satellite TV proposition, NJOI. Demand for NJOI continues to exceed our expectations, more than doubling its customer base and take-up of prepaid content. To further enrich content on NJOI, we have launched the first Chinese HD channel, Astro Xi Yue HD and will introduce a new Malay HD channel in June 2015.”
“In a soft advertising market, we grew our TV and Radio adex shares to sustain our total advertising income at RM589mn in FY15. Astro’s growing TV viewership is attributed to the increasing appeal of local content. Our hit IPs such as Akademi Fantasia, Gegar Vaganza and Maharaja Lawak set new record with viewership numbers exceeding the 2 million mark. The number of programmes that achieved viewership of over 1mn has tripled to 50 in FY15.”
Dato’ Rohana continued, “We have set ourselves clear targets to address the 80% Malaysians who own smart mobile devices. AOTG downloads have increased by 60% to 1.4mn in FY15, while weekly viewing time rose 35% to 96 minutes. We plan to introduce more features to enable users to download their favourite shows onto their devices thus complementing live streaming of news, sports and events. We will also continue to drive take up of connected boxes and usage of PVRs. Our efforts across all of these areas have seen Astro’s digital traffic increased more than two-fold last year, with especially strong performance on mobile web usage, where Astro’s digital properties emerged as the top Malaysian online destination for mobile users in the Comscore Mobile ranking dated January 2015.”
Strategic partnerships formed in FY15 to leverage on Astro’s core strength are yielding positive results and will drive new growth going forward. Astro and GS Homeshopping Inc. launched GO SHOP, which is available on multiple Astro platforms and has sold over 120k items since Nov 2014. Our partnership with Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studios has resulted in Astro Productions being appointed by FremantleMedia Asia, among others to provide television content production services for ‘Asia’s Got Talent’, the world’s biggest talent competition. The show’s premiere delivered more than 10 times the ratings of the next English general entertainment channel across Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. We look forward to the launch of SPARK ASIA, a HD Asian documentary channel, made possible by the joint partnership between Astro, SPARK and Moving Visuals in October 2014.
In conclusion Dato’ Rohana said, “In a continuing soft consumer market, we are confident of delivering growth by committing to innovative products, services, experience and compelling content. We are also forging ahead to develop Astro’s e-commerce value proposition to meet the fast growing demand of online shopping. We remain active and disciplined managers of key costs and focused on delivering sustainable value creation.
