Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad | Results highlights for the financial year ended 31 January 2019 (FY19)
- Revenue stable at RM5.5bn
- EBITDA -12% y-o-y to RM1.6bn
- PATAMI -40% y-o-y to RM463mn; resulting from higher sports content cost, one-off employee separation scheme costs and unrealised forex losses on finance lease liabilities; (Normalised PATAMI -17% y-o-y to RM563mn, excluding one-off employee separation scheme costs and unrealised forex losses on finance lease liabilities)
- Strong FCF of RM1.3bn enables fourth interim dividend of 1.50 sen per share
- Pay TV ARPU steady at RM99.9
- Commerce revenue grew double digit; +29% y-o-y to RM374mn
- Total Adex -5% y-o-y to RM687mn; Digital Adex +43% to RM50mn
Tun Zaki Azmi, Chairman of Astro, said: “In a competitive media landscape, Astro continues to be cash generative, cost disciplined and proactive in its capital management. The Board is pleased to declare a fourth interim dividend of 1.50 sen per share.”
Henry Tan, Chief Executive Officer of Astro, said: “Given the challenging operating environment, Astro is reviewing its business so that we remain efficient and agile to serve our customers better. Our focus will remain on serving our 5.7mn Malaysian homes and 23mn individuals via our Pay TV and NJOI platforms with differentiated and compelling content. By leveraging on our customer base and our ability to reach and engage on television, radio and digital platforms, revenue adjacencies such as Commerce, Adex, content licensing and theatrical sales are showing promising growth trajectory.”
Key Operational Highlights:
- Overall viewership on the rise: Astro and NJOI are in 5.7mn, or 77% of Malaysian households, garnering TV viewership share of 75%. Total video views are growing with the number of connected set-top-boxes increasing by 25% y-o-y to surpass the one million mark, driving On Demand downloads by 135% to 54mn videos in a year. More Astro customers are also watching content on their mobile devices, with registered Astro GO users growing by 32% to 2.2mn.
- Growing reach on radio and digital platform: Our radio brands continue resonate with 16.2mn listeners weekly while growing their presence on digital platform with average monthly digital streams of 14.8mn, up 53% y-o-y. Meanwhile, our digital brands such as Astro Gempak, Xuan, Astro Ulagam, Astro Awani and Stadium Astro continue to resonate with 8.3mn average monthly unique viewers.
- Adex recovery gathers momentum: Astro’s Adex continued to show strong quarterly recovery; +10% q-o-q to RM196mn in Q4FY19. Astro’s share of TV Adex and Radex remained strong at 44% and 76% respectively, while share of digital Adex stood at 5%.
- Record Commerce Performance: Go Shop saw its customer base grew by 38% y-o-y to 1.8mn and recorded its highest ever quarterly revenue at RM99mn in Q4FY19. Go Shop will continue to provide value, increase its product breadth and depth; and create more entertaining content to cater to different customer segments according to their preferred platforms.
Key Initiatives:
- Broadband: Astro’s unique bundled broadband with content offering will increase customer engagement, allowing them to enjoy shows on demand via set top boxes as well as through connected devices such as mobile phones and tablets
- Our local content continues to resonate: Gegar Vaganza 5 registered 26mn digital views and 3.9mn TV viewership; Maharaja Lawak Mega 2018 achieved 27mn digital views and 3.9mn TV viewership.
- Astro movies lead local box office with over 60% market share: Astro’s 2018 blockbuster releases including Paskal The Movie, Hantu Kak Limah, Polis Evo 2 and Dukun have achieved commercial success by grossing over RM100mn
- 4K UHD broadcast: Kicked off a new season of Premier League with the first live 4K UHD broadcast in Malaysia, offering a premium viewing experience to football fans
- Major sporting year: Key sporting events include the 2018 World Cup, Winter Olympics, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and Premier League. 2018 World Cup saw 11.6mn unique viewers on TV and 1.7mn unique viewers on OTT, with 120k World Cup Passes sold
- eGG Network made great strides in 2018: Our regional esports platform co-organised the first large-scale Dota 2 tournament in Malaysia, the Kuala Lumpur Major, a ticketed event attended by over 8,000 fans and was the 7th most watched esports tournament globally in 2018
- Kids IP gaining global fans: Didi & Friends, our #1 animation IP reached a significant milestone as it achieved 1.4bn views on YouTube thus gaining global fans and saw its subscriber base on grew by 106% y-o-y to 1.8mn. Omar & Hana – Our new Kids IP is already in YouTube’s top 10 channels in Malaysia with 686mn views and 1.5mn subscribers. It is also in YouTube’s top 10 trending videos of 2018 in Indonesia.
- Regional partnerships & content licensing: Collaborated with Telkomsel in Indonesia to produce a miniseries, Nawangsih. For scale and better monetisation, we sold the rights of our content IPs including Demon’s Path, Jason’s Market Trails, Jason Can`t Cook, Festive Foods, Hantu Kak Limah and Paskal The Movie to global OTT players.
Outlook
In a digital world where competition is borderless, Astro anticipates FY20 to be a challenging year and recognises the urgency to strengthen its customer value proposition through initiatives such as broadband bundles, seamless viewing across all screens, better customer service and deeper engagement with fans.
The Group also intend to ride on its key differentiator - its content, by deepening its strength in local vernacular and Asian originals through strategic partnerships to address local and regional audience. As part of the Group’s revenue diversification, it continues to leverage on its customer base to offer targeted marketing and advertising solutions enabled by data and analytics, to drive advertising and commerce revenue.
