Friday 29 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 11): Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd net profit fell 8.33% to RM113.41 million in the third quarter ended Oct 31, 2014 (3QFY15), from RM123.71 million a year ago, due to higher tax expenses, amortisation of software, and higher depreciation of property, plant and equipment.

However, the higher tax expenses — by RM15.1 million — was primarily due to a reversal in overprovision of tax, amounting to RM9.8 million in the corresponding quarter, its filing with Bursa Malaysia today showed.

The media and entertainment company has also declared a third interim dividend of 2.25 sen per share, payable next Jan 12.

This brings the total dividend for the nine months of FY15 (9MFY15) to 6.75 sen per share, 12.5% higher than 6.0 sen per share in 9MFY14.

Back to its 3QFY15 financials, it posted a stronger revenue of RM1.28 billion, up 5.24% from RM1.22 billion a year ago, mainly due to the higher subscriptions and other revenue of RM56.7 million and RM11.7 million respectively, though this was offset by a decrease in advertising revenue of RM4.7 million.

“The increase in subscription revenue is attributed to an increase in ARPU for Pay-TV residential subscribers of RM2.90 (from RM95.60 to RM98.50), and an increase in number of Pay-TV residential subscribers by 77,000 (3,401,900 to 3,478,900),” said Astro.

“Astro is now in 62% of Malaysian households, with a total customer base of 4.3 million. Our relevance remains with choices ranging from our free TV, NJOI to Pay-TV, as well as Astro on the Go (AOTG) and OTT (over-the-top content),” said Datuk Rohana Rozhan, Astro's chief executive officer, in a press release.   

“We saw strong demand for HD (high definition) service, with over 1.9 million subscribers; a 45% increase in Personal Video Recording service to 679,000 subscribers; and a 29% rise in Multi-room customers to 372,000,” she said.

Astro’s 9MFY15 net profit was 12.73% higher at RM379.4 million, from RM336.56 million in the previous corresponding quarter. Revenue for the period was also up 9.98% to RM3.88 billion, from RM3.53 billion a year ago.

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