KUALA LUMPUR: Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd maintains a cautious outlook, carefully monitoring business conditions and ensuring effective cost discipline.
The content and entertainment company said the strong US dollar, local economic challenges worsened by geopolitical factors, softening customer sentiments, and the recent service tax revision are all impacting the industry.
“In softening the impact of these challenges, we have introduced more affordable entry points on both PayTV & sooka to drive affordability during the last quarter, to further enhance the value of our products and services,”
In the fourth quarter ended Jan 31, Astro’s net profit fell 18.9% to RM44.38mil, or earnings per share of 0.85 sen compared with RM54.7mil, or 1.05 sen posted a year earlier.
Revenue for the quarter dipped 13.6% to RM819.5mil against RM949.3mil a year prior.
For the full financial year, Astro posted a net profit of RM36.9mil, down 86% from RM256.04mil last year while revenue fell 7.6% to RM3.34bil against RM3.6bil a year ago.
The lower revenue was mainly due to the decrease in subscription revenue, advertising revenue, sales of programming rights and rental income.
Astro said its total Adex rose 11% quarter-on-quarter to RM110mil, with performance increasing across all TV, radio and digital platforms. Radex, TV Adex and Digital Adex shares stood at 77%, 30% and 2% respectively.
“Despite a rather turbulent economic landscape and the challenges of reinvention faced by pay-TV operators globally, Astro remains resilient, implementing multiple initiatives that broaden our technology accessibility and convenience, as well as diversifying our business,” group CEO Euan Smith said in a statement.
He added that Astro continued to lead the content landscape, producing highly successful signatures and dramas which garnered great traction amongst its viewers.