This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on March 29, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd’s net profit rose 25% to RM181.79 million for the fourth quarter ended Jan 31, 2018 (4QFY18), from RM145.08 million a year earlier, thanks to lower costs.

Earnings per share rose to 3.49 sen from 2.79 sen, the group said in a filing wth Bursa Malaysia.

Quarterly revenue fell slightly to RM1.39 billion from RM1.4 billion on lower subscription earnings.

The group declared a fourth interim dividend of three sen per share, payable on April 27. It also proposed a final dividend of 0.5 sen per share.

For the full FY18, net profit rose 24% to RM770.64 million compared with RM623.68 million last year. Revenue fell 1% to RM5.53 billion from RM5.61 billion.

Astro said Malaysia’s advertising expenditure (adex) declined 8% year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM4.5 billion from RM4.9 billion. Total adex, however, registered a 2% growth y-o-y to RM722 million from RM705 million.

“This includes digital adex which grew 17% from RM30 million to RM35 million. This leads to a share of 44% and 74% in TV adex and radex (radio expenditure) respectively.

“This trajectory is expected to continue with focused efforts in providing solutions to both agencies and advertisers alike, driven increasingly by customer persona data,” the group said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Astro’s total customers grew 7% y-o-y from 5.1 million to 5.5 million, an increased TV household reach from 71% to 75% in FY18, primarily driven by NJOI (Astro’s free satellite television service).

At the same time, NJOI’s revenue grew 21% y-o-y to RM100 million, as its skinny bundles and a la carte prepaid choices gained traction, said Astro.

“Pay TV remains resilient despite competition, with a global best-in-class churn of 9.6%, average revenue per user (Arpu) of RM99.90 and incoming Arpu of RM67.70,” it said.

Astro group chief executive officer Datuk Rohana Rozhan said deeper engagement has been seen with customers across all media assets.

“Astro GO registered users increased 45% y-o-y to 1.6 million, with active viewers watching an average of 247 minutes of content weekly. This gives us the ability to optimally market and monetise innovative products and services personalised for households, individual customer personas and advertisers,” Rohana said.

Regionally, Astro’s online video streaming service, Tribe, saw a 312% growth in total installations y-o-y to 3.1 million in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore by forging complementary win-win partnerships in the region.