Malaysia’s Astro DTH pay-TV operator says it will add 8 transponders-worth of channels and extra content to its line-up during the second half of this year, and to boost revenues before the end of this year.

“With the additional transponders, we will significantly increase our broadcast capacity. This will enable us to line up a comprehensive suite of value-added, content-rich and feature-packaged offerings for Malaysians this year,” said Datuk Rohana Rozhan, CEO of Astro Malaysia, speaking at the company’s end-of-year results (to January 31st) on March 31st.

Astro’s pre-tax profit for the year to January 31st fell to $174.5 million from $176.2 million) in the same period last year, despite generating double digit revenue in FY 2014 and which was boosted by the increase in subscriptions and advertising revenues. The company’s revenue increased to $1.46 billion from $1.30 billion.

“We have delivered four consecutive quarters of double digit revenue growth in FY14, underpinned by expansion of our customer base, higher take-up of value added products and services, as well as industry leading Adex growth,” said Rozhan.  “During the year, we successfully grew our total customer base by 400,000 to 3.9 million, which translates to 56 per cent Malaysian TV household penetration. We have now completed the swap-out of our pay-TV customers onto the Astro B.yond platform, and it is highly encouraging to see that our customers are increasingly taking up our product, value and service propositions; for example HD, PVR, VoD and AOTG. This is how we have been able to grow ARPU from RM93.2 to RM96.0. It has also been pleasing to see continued strong demand for our signature content offerings; which has resulted in 15 shows exceeding the 1mn viewership mark this year, and which has been enhanced by an additional 12 channels, 7 of which are in HD.”

Astro has 3.9 million subscribers, up 5 per cent. ARPU up 3 per cent.

Categories: Articles, DTH/Satellite