Astro's net profit for its fourth quarter ended Jan 31, 2016 jumped 47% to RM203.77mil from RM139.97mil in the previous corresponding period.

Astro boosts profit by 47% in Q4

BY EUGENE MAHALINGAMthe star

Korean goods and other exclusive offerings are among the featured goods in the Astro Go Shop Channel 318. Astro says there was an increase in merchandise sales of RM37.7mil from the home-shopping business.

KUALA LUMPUR: Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd’s net profit for its fourth quarter ended Jan 31, 2016 jumped 47% to RM203.77mil from RM139.97mil in the previous corresponding period.

This was mainly due to an increase in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) of RM27mil and a lower net finance cost of RM30mil.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia on Tuesday, the pay-TV operator said the lower net finance cost was due to lower unrealised foreign exchange loss arising from unhedged finance lease liability of RM19.4mil and unhedged vendor financing of RM34.7mil.

This, the company said, was offset by an increase in transponder’s lease interest of RM6.8mil and increase in share of post-tax result from investment accounted for of RM12.9mil, offset by higher tax expenses by RM11.2mil.

“EBITDA margin increased by 0.6% against corresponding quarter mainly due to lower staff related costs and lower impairment of receivables. This was offset by higher content costs and cost of merchandise sales.”

Revenue in the fourth quarter, meanwhile, increased to RM1.40bil from RM1.35bil a year earlier.

“This was mainly due to an increase in subscription, advertising and other revenue of RM7.8mil, RM24.8mil and RM21mil respectively,” Astro said.

It said the increase in subscription revenue was attributed by both an increase in average revenue per user (ARPU) for pay-TV residential subscribers of 30 sen (from RM99 to RM99.30) and an increase in the number of residential subscribers by 40,400 (from 3.51 million to 3.55 million).

“The increase in other revenue is due to an increase in merchandise sales of RM37.7mil from home-shopping business, offset by a decrease in licensing income of RM6.7mil and sales of decoders of RM4.4mil.”

For its financial year ended Jan 31, 2016, Astro’s net profit grew to RM615.32mil from RM519.37mil in the previous corresponding period, while revenue rose to RM5.48bil from RM5.23bil a year earlier.

Astro also announced a fourth interim single-tier dividend of 2.75 sen per ordinary share of 10 sen each, to be paid on April 21.