Astro's pre-tax profit increases to RM845.51 million

Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad's pre-tax profit for the financial year ended Jan 31, 2017 rose to RM845.51 million from RM829.39 million a year ago.

Revenue increased to RM5.61 billion from RM5.48 billion previously.

For the financial year ended 31 January 2017 (FY17) showed evidence of the company’s resilience in a challenging market, underpinned by strong execution of its strategic imperatives to deliver long-term shareholder returns.

Revenue is up two per cent year-on-year to RM5.6 billion, PATAMI is up slightly by one per cent to RM624 million and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) is down six per cent to RM1.8 billion.

EBITDA are down mostly due to investment in key sports content and currency depreciation impacting content costs.

Astro’s offerings have proven to be successful amongst the retail market as their customer base exceeded 5 million, driven by subscription-free TV service, NJOI.

Total customers increased six per cent year-on-year to 5.1 million with Pay-TV customers holding steady at 3.5 million and NJOI customers increased nearly one third to 1.7 million people.