Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd posted RM228 million profit after tax after minority interest (Patami) in the first half of the financial year ending January 31, 2022 (H1FY22).
- “Astro’s H1FY22 results remained resilient amid prolonged lockdown. Astro continued to be cash generative, cost disciplined and proactive in its capital management. The Board has declared a second interim dividend of 1.5 sen per share,” says Tun Zaki Azmi, Chairman of Astro.
- Growing Streaming Services
- TVBAnywhere+ app is the latest to join Astro’s growing family of streaming services. Astro Dynasty Pack customers can now enjoy free Premium Service access on TVBAnywhere+ app with over 40k hours of the biggest Cantonese entertainment.
- Coming next is Netflix, which will be integrated with the Ultra and Ulti Boxes. Astro’s streaming service for millennials, sooka emerged as the #1 Entertainment App on Google Play within 2 weeks of launch. It achieved over 428k app downloads and garnered more than 525k users.
- Biggest Linear Channels Refresh
- Astro recently introduced new movie channels (HBO Family, HBO Hits, and SHOWCASE MOVIES) and general entertainment channels (BBC Lifestyle, BBC Earth, Paramount Network, Lifetime and PRIMEtime). On 1 Oct 2021, new Sports channels (Astro Arena 2, Astro SuperSport 5 and SPOTV) that feature key sporting events like WWE, BWF, UFC, Formula 1, MotoGP, Wimbledon and US Open will be added, followed by BBC First and BBC Brit on demand in mid October.
- These new offerings are timely, given Disney’s decision to discontinue its linear FOX channels in the region as part of its strategy to push streaming, says the company. Astro customers who have activated their Disney+ Hotstar app will be able to continue to enjoy most of the content from the FOX channels on the app.
- Henry Tan, Group CEO of Astro said, “Although Astro recorded a 10% growth in H1FY22 PATAMI, the continuing lockdown and elevated content cost arising from Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and UEFA EURO 2020™️ impacted our Q2FY22 PATAMI. However, we are pushing ahead with our transformation plan and our ambition to be the #1 aggregator of the best streaming services.”
- “Today we have one million connected boxes, of which over 400k are on the Ultra and Ulti Boxes, including the recently launched self-install Ultra Plug & Play Box that runs solely on broadband. These homes are enjoying the new experience of On Demand, Cloud Recording, Play from Start and will soon be able to enjoy content from streaming services on their box.
- “Astro GO, enhanced with Interactive Mode for live sports viewing, has 1.6mn monthly active users with an average weekly viewing time of 230 minutes, while On Demand videos streamed grew 205% to 233mn. In H1FY22, our broadband base grew 89% y-o-y as more customers bundled broadband with their content packages for greater convenience and value. Soon we will be providing more options to further strengthen our broadband and digital offerings.”
