Astro aims to quadruple its individual users in five years

by **Cals** Fri 09 Oct 2015, 22:37

Code:: Astro aims to quadruple its individual users in five years

By Danial Idraki / The Edge Financial Daily | October 9, 2015 : 10:07 AM MYT

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on October 9, 2015.

KUALA LUMPUR: Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd ([You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] Valuation: 1.70, Fundamental: 1.10), the country's largest pay TV provider, plans to quadruple its registered individual users to three million within the next five years from 800,000 currently.
Its chief executive officer Datuk Rohana Rozhan said there had been a major shift in content consumption needs, and the entertainment provider’s next growth focus is to cater to the content needs of every individual within the household.
“Malaysians are sophisticated consumers, increasingly watching content outside the home, online and offline. Today, we see a rising demand for Video on Demand services, [and] Astro’s new On Demand (OD) is our new complementary way of consuming content, at home or on the go,” she said during the launch of Astro’s latest OD yesterday.
Astro currently has a customer base of 4.6 million customers or approximately 65% penetration of Malaysian households.
Rohana told The Edge Financial Daily that the target is to achieve between 80% and 85% penetration rate within the next three to five years.
“Of the 4.6 million customers, slightly over one million are NJOI customers, and we achieved that figure within three years,” she said. NJOI is a subscription-free satellite TV service that was introduced in December 2011.
“We think that the growth impetus for Astro going forward is going to be predominantly driven by NJOI,” she said.
Asked on the group’s hedging of its forex for its contents, Rohana said Astro takes into consideration today’s reality and is prudent in its management of the group’s funds.
“We are covered ahead for 12 months, and it is factored into the cost of doing business. We have got various levers open to us,” she said.
Rohana added that based on current forex rates, the group has been taking positions to go further until August 2016, three additional months from what was reported previously.
Astro is also targeting to achieve 500,000 connected personal video recorder (PVR) by end-2015, from its current 216,000 connected boxes.
Meanwhile, chief operating officer Henry Tan told a press conference that the group’s share of advertising has increased, mainly due to the availability of TV online or on the go.
Acknowledging the cautious sentiment of advertisers in the industry, Tan said, “Television viewership is at its highest ever. Statistics in Malaysia and global actually shows that television viewership, together with online viewing, has actually become an all-time high.”
Tan added that some people might be watching TV on the go, and because it is on the go, it is popularising TV on the big screen.