Cross platform reach said to help Astro's adex growth by 10%

Astro has achieved revenue growth amidst challenging market conditions. This is underpinned by e-commerce and Adex, said the company in its recent financial statements. The company saw a 2% y-o-y revenue increase to RM5.6bn. Astro’s cross platform reach on TV, radio and digital also drove the adex growth by 10% to RM705 million.Meanwhile, Astro said its customer base exceeded 5 million, driven by subscription-free TV service, NJOI. For instance, the company's total customers increased by 6% to 5.1 million homes with pay-TV customers holding steady at 3.5 million. The customers for NJOI increased by 30% to 1.7 million.Astro's TV currently dominates 71% of Malaysian household which accounts for 21 million family members across 5.1 million homes. This is as a result of combined engagement of TV, radio, digital and ground events. Moreover, while its radio weekly "listenership" stands at 15.6 million, its digital properties register close to 5.8 million visitors every month.The company also plans to create more original content in the future, and targets to own, and distribute at least 50% of the annual content spend. The company's TV viewership stands at 77%, with an average of 13.9 million viewers tuning in four hours daily.However, the company's operating performance saw a fall of 6% year-on-year to RM1.8 billion, due to investment in key sports content and currency depreciation impacting content costs.Ramp up digitalMoreover in an effort to aggressively grow its presence in the digital space, the company has also collaborated with Amazon Web Services for improved services. Recently, the company has been branding out it services in other regions as well. For instance on a regional scale, Tribe, the company's OTT streaming app, was launched in Indonesia and Philippines in 2016.These platforms, in a year's time, achieved over one million downloads. While Go Shop is available in Singapore as well, eGG Network, the company's e-sports platform, is available in five countries within the first year of its launch. Go Shop, the company's e-commerce initiative, also grew its scale and reach with the launch of its Mandarin-channel in Singapore in partnership with StarHub Cable Vision. As a result, its revenue increased by 38% to RM261 million.“Astro continues to be resilient in a challenging market, underpinned by strong execution of its strategic imperatives to deliver long-term shareholder returns. In line with our dividend policy, the board is pleased to declare a fourth interim dividend of 3 sen per share and to recommend for shareholders’ approval a final dividend of 0.50 sen per share,” said Tun Zaki Azmi, chairman of Astro.“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," said Rohana Rozhan, group CEO of Astro.