KUALA LUMPUR: Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd expects its new on demand (OD) offering and additional video-on-demand content to bring in additional average revenue per user (arpu).
Yesterday, the company launched OD by Astro, which allows customers to select content and instantly watch it on TV and a device.
Astro had earlier targeted to achieve an arpu of RM99.50 by the end of the year from RM99 currently.
“Also, the additional titles of the latest movies under Astro First and Astro Best, which households can purchase to add to their subscription and access it over any screens, will help boost our arpu.
“In addition to that, non-Astro customers can also subscribe to either OD Plus or the ala carte offering,” said chief executive officer Datuk Rohana Rozhan at the launch, referring to the Astro on the Go (AOTG) service.
Astro’s OD offering comes in three options: OD Free, OD Plus and OD Store. OD Free allows subscribers who have connected their personal video recorder (PVR) to their home Wi-Fi to watch content for free.
Whereas OD Plus provides on demand access to a superior selection of local and international movies, blockbusters, complete box-sets of TV series and kids content at RM15.90 per month.
Meanwhile, OD Store allows customers to pick and pay for the latest cinema release and watch it instantly.
“Again, it opens up a new customer base which is non-Astro household customers today. So, hopefully, all of that will add not only to our arpu, but also the value-for-money for the Astro households,” she added.
From its 4.6 million subscribers, approximately 800,000 have PVR and out of those, 216,000 are connected to their home Wi-Fi.
Astro is targeting to have 500,000 connected PVRs by the end of the year. It also aims to increase total AOTG downloads from 1.8 million currently to 2.5 million by year-end.
Astro also has 800,000 registered individual users outside the Astro subscriber base, which it plans to grow to three million in five years’ time.
Astro is leveraging on the cloud eco system, which enables it to scale up its OD offering easily.
“Our OD content is stored in a secured cloud space. Rather than building infrastructure, the cloud provides the scalability to expand easily,” said chief technology officer Phuah Aik Chong.
Astro is upbeat despite the declining advertising expenditure environment.
“For us, the positive side is that our share in advertising has actually increased. So, from our share perspective we are quite upbeat and positive. People have to separate what we call the traditional and online categories.
“If you look at content for example, TV viewership is at its highest ever. If anybody thinks that TV is affected, that is really a fallacy. Statistics in Malaysia and globally show that TV with online viewing is at its all-time high. Some are still watching at home, and some are watching on the go. So, TV is going into a new era because TV is now mobile,” said chief operating officer Henry Tan.
– The Star
