Astro Malaysia adds 40k pay TV subscribers in quarter to end-April

KUALA LUMPUR — Astro today announced its financial results for the first quarter of the financial year ending 31 January 2014 that saw the Company achieving a 14% growth in revenue to RM1.1bn, compared with RM986.0mn in the corresponding period last year.

The quarter saw the number of pay-TV subscribers increase by 40k to 3.32mn (Q4FY13: 3.28mn), while NJOI customers grew by 55k to 264k (Q4FY13: 209k). The total customer base is now 3.58mn, 53% of total TV households in Malaysia.

The number of subscribers on Astro B.yond has increased to 2.18mn (Q4FY13: 1.97mn), representing 66% (Q4FY13: 60%) of total pay-TV subscribers. We have also been able to drive higher take-up of value- added products and services, increasing ARPU to RM94.20 (Q4FY13: RM93.20).

Out of the 2.18mn subscribers on Astro B.yond, 1.40mn are on HD service (Q4FY13: 1.26mn), 343k are on Personal Video Recording (PVR) (Q4FY13: 299k), 245k are on Multiroom (Q4FY13: 218k) and 784k are on Superpack bundle (Q4FY13: 727k). Astro First and Astro Best, which offer the latest movies on demand, have registered over 6.2mn buys since launch.

Astro’s Q1FY14 performance

('000)                  Q1FY14  Q4FY13  Change %  Q1FY13  Change %
                        ------  ------  --------  ------  --------
Pay TV Customers         3,316   3,276        +1   3,108        +7
NJOI                       264     209       +26      14     +1786
Customers on
 Astro B.yond Platform   2,182   1,966       +11   1,377       +58
HD take-up               1,397   1,264       +11     926       +51
Customers on PVR           343     299       +15     103      +233
Multiroom take-up          245     218       +12     123       +99
Superpack take-up          784     727        +8     404       +94
ARPU (RM)                 94.2    93.2        +1    90.3        +4
Churn                       8%      8%         -      8%         -

Astro continues executing on its product roadmap planned for the year. In March 2013, AOTG, which enables viewing of Astro content on PCs, tablets and smartphones, was commercialised.

In April 2013, we launched Astro B.yond IPTV powered by Maxis fibre optics network. Together with TIME’s network, Astro now has the widest fibre-to-home broadband coverage of 1.4mn homes passed in Malaysia. The collaboration with high speed broadband providers allows us to deliver the best in TV content, bandwidth, experience and value to our customers.

Notes:
NJOI – Free-to-air satellite TV
Astro B.yond – HD-capable Pay TV