Astro delivers growth in customers, ARPU and AdEx

Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad (Astro) announced a total dividend of 4.0 sen per share for the financial year ended 31st January 2013.

According to its chairman, Tun Zaki Azmi the amount translated to an approximate 100% payout ratio on an annualized basis.

For the first quarter of the current financial year, an interim of 2.0 sen per share has been declared, a 33% increase from interim of 1.5 sen per share paid in the last 2 quarters.

Meanwhile, Astro chief executive officer Datuk Rohana Rozhan announced that Astro achieved revenue growth of 10% to RM4.3 billion.

In the first quarter of the current financial year, pay-TV customers increased by 40,000 to 3.32 million while NJOI customers grew by 55,000 to 264,000, bringing the total customers to 3.58 million, representing 53% of the total TV household in Malaysia.

Subscribers on Astro B.yond rose to 2.18 million of the total pay-TV subscribers. Out of the 2.18 million subscribers on Astro B.yond, 1.40 million are on HD services, whereby 343,000 are on Personal Video Recording.

Rohana stressed Astro’s focus was to strongly execute strategic imperatives of achieving growth in customers, Average revenue per user (ARPU) and advertising expenditure (AdEx) by providing more choices, compelling content, convenience and service across all platforms.