Malaysia’s Astro tops 3.3m subs
June 20, 2013
By Chris Forrester
Malaysia´s digital satellite operator Astro, states that their pay-TV subscriber base has increased by 40,000 and has reached 3.32 million. The number of subscribers opting for Astro´s B.yond has increased to 2.18 million which represents 66 per cent of the total pay-TV subscriber base. Out of the 2.18 million B.yond subscribers, 1.40 million have opted for HDTV transmissions, 343000 are using Astro’s PVR, 245,000 are on multiroom and 784,000 use their Superpack bundle.
Astro says it aims to complete the conversion of its standard STB customers to B.yond HD platform by this year end. The company has stated that 64 per cent of customers have subscribed to its HD services in the first quarter of the year which means that Astra has swapped out 168,000 devices from old, legacy STB to HD STBs. The company plans to increase their bandwidth capacity in 2014, allowing operators to increase the number of HD channels on offer.
Astro´s movie-on-demand services Astro First and Astro Best has registered 6.2 million buyers since its launch. Astro On-The-Go service that enables viewing its contents on PC, tablet and smartphones was launched in March 2013.