Highlight Astro 4Q profit rises 34% to RM111m, pays 3 sen dividend

by **Cals** Tue 01 Apr 2014, 01:31

Highlight Astro 4Q profit rises 34% to RM111m, pays 3 sen dividend

Business & Markets 2014

Written by Jeffrey Tan of theedgemalaysia.com

Monday, 31 March 2014 18:41

KUALA LUMPUR (Mar 31): Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd’s net profit rose 34% year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM111.4 million in the fourth quarter ended January 31, 2014 from RM83.2 million.

In a statement to Bursa Malaysia today, pay-TV operator Astro said the higher profit came on an increase in subscription and advertising revenue, besides lower taxes.

Astro said group revenue climbed to RM1.26 billion from RM1.13 billion.

Astro said the larger net profit was offset by an increase in depreciation of set-top boxes of RM39 million and increase in net finance cost of RM8.9 million.

The firm said the higher revenue was mainly due to the increase in subscription, advertising and other revenue of RM73.4 million, RM14.7 million and RM40.4 million respectively.

"The increase in subscription revenue is attributed to both an increase in ARPU (average revenue per user) for Pay-TV residential subscribers of RM2.80 (from RM93.20 to RM96.00) and an increase in number of Pay-TV residential subscribers by 166,800 from 3,275,500 to 3,442,300," Astro said.

For the full-year, net profit rose to RM447.9 million from RM417.9 million in the previous year, while revenue was higher at RM4.79 billion compared to RM4.26 billion.

Astro plans to pay total dividends of three sen a share for the quarter in review. Astro said it intended to reward shareholders with a fourth interim dividend of two sen and a final dividend of one sen.

The fourth quarter dividends bring the full-year figure to nine sen a share.

In a separate statement, Astro CEO Datuk Rohana Rozhan said "with the expected delivery of additional transponders later this year, we will significantly increase our broadcast capacity which will enable us to line up a comprehensive suite of value-added, content-rich and feature-packed offerings for Malaysians in 2014."

"We aim to meet our customers’ entertainment needs at all price points, whilst growing our customer base, ARPU and share of Adex (advertising expenditure),” Rohana said.