ASTRO Malaysia adds 55,000; Sun Direct India adds 100,000 subscribers in latest quarter

ASTRO ALL ASIA NETWORKS PLC (AAAN) today announced its unaudited results for the financial year ended 31 January 2010.

The Group’s pay-TV business in Malaysia gained some 284,000 net new customers, bringing the residential subscriber base to 2.93 million, representing 49% penetration of Malaysian TV households and generating an EBITDA margin of 29%.

Astro TV Chief Executive Officer Dato’ Rohana Rozhan said: “Astro TV achieved an EBITDA of RM846 million or margin of 29% for FY2010, which is the highest ever in our company’s history. This may be attributed to a strong execution of our operating plans and disciplined cost controls. We recorded 284,000 net additions, bringing our total customer base to 2.93 million. The response to our High Definition services continues to gain momentum, and we plan to introduce new offerings such as Digital Video Recording, VOD/NVOD and IP connectivity.

2010 is a huge year for sports fans as Astro will be broadcasting, amongst others, all 64 World Cup matches, live in both Standard Definition (SD) and High Definition (HD), Thomas and Uber Cup, New Delhi Commonwealth Games and Guang Zhou Asian Games in addition to our recently launched local sports channel, Astro Arena”.

Astro TV residential subscribers:

3QFY09  4QFY09  1QFY10  2QFY10  3QFY10  4QFY10
------  ------  ------  ------  ------  ------
 2,565   2,646   2,728   2,781   2,875   2,930

Sun Direct TV

• Strong subscriber growth with 4.1 million subscribers as at 4QFY10
• Offering 170+ TV channels and 31 radio channels
• Services are now available nationwide
• Launched Sun Direct HD pack

In India, Sun Direct, continued its development as a leading provider of digital pay-TV services where it registered some 1.6 million net new customers in FY2010, taking its residential subscriber base to 4.1 million.

More: Earnings Release