StarHub pay TV households down 49,000 in 2018

StarHub Reports 2018 Fourth-Quarter and Full Year Results

SINGAPORE — StarHub, a leading Singapore company that delivers world-class communications, entertainment, cyber security, info-communications solutions and digital services to consumers and enterprises, today announced its unaudited consolidated results for the fourth quarter and full year ended 31 December 2018.

The Company continued to deliver double-digit service revenue growth from its Enterprise Fixed services to mitigate the lower service revenues especially from its Mobile and Pay TV lines of business.

Pay TV Services

Pay TV service revenue of S$71.3 million in 4Q2018 and S$311.3 million in the full year was 19.1% and 11.9% lower YoY mainly due to lower subscriber base.

As of 31 December 2018, Pay TV households stood at 409,000 after the quarter’s net churn of 14,000 households. Compared to a year ago, Pay TV households were lower by 49,000 or 10.8%.

Monthly average churn for 4Q2018 was at 1.4% and 1.2% for the full year.

Pay TV ARPU of S$48 in 4Q2018 and S$49 in the full year were lower YoY mainly due to lower basic tier subscriber base and rebates given to customers for the cessation of certain channels this year.

Pay TV operating statistics

                                                       Quarter ended/As of  Full Year ended     YoY
                                                    ----------------------  ---------------   Incr/
                                                    31 Dec  30 Sep  31 Dec     As of 31 Dec  (Decr)
                                                      2018    2018   2017*    2018    2017*       %
                                                    ------  ------  ------   ------  ------  ------
Number of residential Pay TV customers (thousands)     409     423     458      409     458  (10.8)
ARPU (S$ per month) (1)                                 48      47      51       49      51   (4.3)
Average monthly churn rate (2)                        1.4%    1.4%    0.9%     1.2%    0.9%       -

* Restated
(1) Comparatives have been restated to take into account the retrospective adjustments relating to SFRS(I) 15
(2) Change in computation basis from end subscriber base to average end subscriber base