Astro Malaysia penetrates 5 million Malaysian homes

Astro Malaysia has released its results for the first half of the financial year ending 31 January 2017 and the company said it saw modest growth year on year (yoy) in terms of revenue, underpinned by better performance in e-commerce. Furthermore, revenue growth in first half of fiscal year 2017 was supported by improved performance of Adex and Go Shop.Advertising income grew by 10% yoy to RM336.3 million, from RM304.5 million in first half of fiscal year 16 due to Astro’s increased reach and integrated play of TV, radio, mobile and digital which are now drawing in viewers, listeners and advertisers. Astro’s share of TV Adex and Radex amounted to 37% and 73% respectively.According to Dato’ Rohana Rozhan, group chief executive officer of Astro, the company is now serving five million or 69% of Malaysian households with growth primarily driven by  subscription-free TV service, NJOI (up 38% yoy).“Our challenge is to provide a choice of content, products, services, value propositions and customer experiences which is second to none,” she said. To achieve this, the company will focus on getting to know customers better by deploying data analytics and increasing  its marketing efforts to raise customer awareness on the products and services it is now offering.“Viewership has increased with real time second screen engagement via Astro on the Go (AOTG), content mobile apps and through integrating social media onto our content delivery platforms,” she said.For the company, the number of connected set-top-boxes jumped 118% yoy to 395k while video downloads increased to 522k per month, from 300k per month. Mobile viewing also rose with AOTG app downloads increasing 67% yoy to 2.6mln and average weekly viewing time growing to 260 minutes. Astro also saw higher demand for Astro First and Astro Best pay-per-view content.Meanwhile, this is a record Sports year for Astro as it achieved huge successes for UEFA EURO 2016 with a record reach of 10mln and 12.4mln for Rio Olympics 2016 and saw a phenomenal four-fold increase.Astro’s journey towards becoming a digital brand had a huge boost from the Rio 2016 Olympics with Astro Arena’s YouTube channel garnering 21 million views. Its live stream of Badminton men's singles final on Astro Arena and Stadium Astro YouTube channels attracted 120k concurrent viewers.The region’s first 24/7 e-sports channel, eGG Network (Every Good Game) also reached over 5.3 million viewers since its launch in June. Currently available in Malaysia and Indonesia, eGG Network will soon be available in the Philippines. eGG Network is available on linear and OTT on both Astro and Tribe, which is currently in Indonesia and will be launched in the Philippines in November 2016.Dato’ Rohana said, “We are committed to delivering sustainable total shareholder returns by continuously reinventing ourselves to better serve our customers, earning our place as the people’s media brand of choice. In an increasingly fragmented market, our focus remains on differentiating ourselves through our content and talent whilst ensuring best in class customer experiences for our comprehensive suite of products and services across all our media assets.”