Astro Bhd achieved a net profit of RM623.7 million in FY17, up 1.3% from the previous year on revenue of RM5.6 billion. Total adex in FY17 grew 10% year-on-year to RM705mil, with digital adex registering a growth of 15%.
Its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) fell 6% on a year-on-year basis to RM1.8 billion due to investments in key sports content and currency depreciation impacting content costs.
With a current TV service penetration rate of 71% of Malaysian households, of which 3.4 million to 3.5 million are households make up the pay-TV base, Astro intends to focus on customer spend through pay per view products like Astro Best and Astro First.
In FY17, Arpu was RM100.40, driven by higher take-up of value-added products and services, as well as the re-pricing of sports pack.
Tun Zaki Azmi, Chairman of Astro said: “Astro continues to be resilient in a challenging market, underpinned by strong execution of its strategic imperatives to deliver long-term shareholder returns.
In addition, Astro notes that more than 507,000 set top boxes have been connected to broadband and Astro aims to have at least one million connected by year-end. In turn, the group targets to achieve five million viewers on Astro GO, which is available to all customers as an extension of their subscriptions, providing an interactive multi-screen experience over iOS and Android mobile devices.
Apart from that, the group hopes to see two or three new regional markets launched this year, in terms of its over-the-top (OTT) streaming platform, Tribe. Tribe has been launched in Indonesia and the Philippines last year.
Meanwhile, the group’s Go Shop grew its scale and reach with the launch of its Mandarin-channel in partnership with Singapore’s StarHub Cable Vision Ltd. The revenue contribution from Go Shop increased 38% to RM261mil, selling 1.5 million products to 912,000 customers. The board has also declared a fourth interim dividend of 3 sen per share and to recommend for shareholders’ approval a final dividend of five sen per share.
Datuk Rohana Rozhan, Group Chief Executive Officer of Astro, said: “As we venture into the new year, we do so recognising our market strengths that we need to reinforce and build on, as well as the gaps that we need to aggressively address in order to be a deserving customer media brand of choice. Our Customers and Community Today our TV service is in 71% of Malaysian households and growing.”
“That equates to 21 million family members across 5.1 million homes. Our combined engagement with households and individuals across TV, radio, digital and ground events is second to none; radio weekly listenership is at 15.6 million, our digital properties register close to 5.8 million visitors every month, and last year alone we attracted approximately 500k people to over 350 ground events. Additionally, our brand continues to uphold a strong position as one of Malaysia’s most loved and trusted consumer brands.”