KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 21): Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd's net profit for the second quarter ended July 31, 2021 (2QFY22) fell 34.81% to RM87.13 million from RM133.65 million a year ago on subdued commercial subscription and merchandise sales, it said today.

Quarterly earnings per share slid to 1.67 sen, from 2.56 sen in 2QFY21. The broadcaster has declared a second interim dividend of 1.5 sen per share, for a total of three sen per share for 1HFY22, from 2.5 sen in the same period last year.

The group saw higher content costs for its television unit while sales from its home-shopping unit fell on negative consumer sentiment amid the pandemic.

Quarterly revenue, it said, slid 2.82% to RM1.06 billion, from RM1.09 billion, mainly arising from a decrease in subscription revenue and merchandise sales, offset by an increase in advertising revenue and sales of programming rights.

The weaker performance in 2QFY22 narrowed Astro’s 1HFY22 net profit growth. 1HFY22 net profit rose 10.06% to RM228.37 million or 4.38 sen per share, from RM207.49 million a year ago. Revenue fell 1.03% to RM2.12 billion from RM2.14 billion.

It attributed the bottom line increase to lower depreciation of property, plant and equipment and lower net financing costs, offset by a decrease in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.

“EBITDA margin marginally dropped by 0.5% against the corresponding period mainly due to higher content costs, mitigated by lower merchandise costs and licence, copyright and royalty fees, as a percentage of revenue,” it said.

In a separate statement, Astro group chief executive officer Henry Tan said the continuing lockdown and elevated content cost arising from Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and UEFA EURO 2020 impacted its 2QFY22 PATAMI.

“However, we are pushing ahead with our transformation plan and our ambition to be the number one aggregator of the best streaming services,” Tan said.

“Today we have one million connected boxes, of which over 400k are on the Ultra and Ulti Boxes, including the recently launched self-install Ultra Plug & Play Box that runs solely on broadband.

“Astro GO, enhanced with Interactive Mode for live sports viewing, has 1.6 million monthly active users with an average weekly viewing time of 230 minutes, while On Demand videos streamed grew 205% to 233 million,” he added.

“In 1HFY22, our broadband base grew 89% y-o-y as more customers bundled broadband with their content packages for greater convenience and value,” Tan said.

It also saw sports viewership hit a new record with 10.7 million reach for the 2020 Olympic Games and 8.9 million for UEFA EURO 2020.

On prospects, Astro said it seeks to produce more original content and will seek opportunities for adjacencies in the commerce, broadband, and digital spaces that they are in.

The group has added TVBAnywhere+ among its list of streaming services, with Netflix next to be integrated with its Ultra and Ulti boxes.

Shares of Astro slid one sen or 0.94% to settle at RM1.05 today, valuing the group at a market capitalisation of RM5.48 billion.