Advanced Television

Astro boosts pay-TV subs

September 25, 2025

Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad strengthened its growth momentum in the second quarter of FY26 (Q2FY26), with pay-TV gross customer additions rising 5 per cent QoQ as more households embraced the simplicity and value of Astro One packs in their entertainment choices.
This stronger take-up was supported by improved customer loyalty, with churn easing 25 per cent from the previous quarter as former customers reconnected. Together, these gains helped narrow pay-TV subscriber loss by about 60 per cent on both a quarterly and yearly basis.

This progress has carried through the end of the quarter, culminating in August when Astro recorded its first positive month of pay-TV adds since 2018, a meaningful milestone for the company’s core business.

ADJACENT BUSINESSES
Similar to the previous quarter, the company has also seen encouraging traction in its adjacent businesses, namely Astro Fibre, sooka and Enterprise, as part of its broader transformation strategy aimed to diversify into new revenue streams beyond traditional pay-TV.
Designed to bring together connectivity and content, Astro Fibre’s customer base registered a 12 per cent growth YoY, a clear indication that our customers value the seamless entertainment and broadband experience it provides, particularly in a fiercely contested market.

Our homegrown OTT platform, sooka, continued its upward momentum, posting a nearly 50 per cent increase in its VIP paying base YoY, an encouraging feat given the various major sport tentpoles that had taken place in the same quarter of the previous financial year.

The company’s Enterprise segment delivered a 6 per cent YoY revenue increase, even as softer consumer sentiment weighed on retail businesses. The customer base continued to expand both quarterly and yearly, reflecting the resilience of this segment and despite Q2 traditionally being a low sports season.

Looking ahead, we expect this segment to perform well in the second half of the financial year, supported by the return of high-demand sporting events such as the Premier League, the Malaysian Football League, and the 2025 Badminton World Federation Championship.
ADEX
On the Advertising Expenditure (ADEX) front, Q2FY26 was a more muted quarter as the company posted RM61 million, softening 12 per cent QoQ across TV, Addressable, Radio and Digital. This reflects weak macro sentiments, with Multinationals in particular choosing to defer or repurpose marketing spend. Even so, Astro continues to advance its positioning as THE ‘Attention Company’, building the right capabilities to deliver valuable attention that all brands seek.

A key step forward in the quarter was the launch of KULT, Astro’s culture-first digital marketing venture. KULT leverages Astro’s ecosystem of premium content, first-party data and creator networks to help brands move at the speed of culture, delivering resonance across all leading platforms to reinforce Astro’s role as the preferred advertising ecosystem, unlocking new revenue streams and measurable outcomes for advertisers.

FINANCIALS

Amid headwinds from a challenging economy and cautious consumer spending, Astro delivered quarterly revenues of RM683 million, with EBITDA of RM169 million and PATAMI of RM16 million. The company continued to demonstrate resilience, remaining cash-generative with free cashflows of RM138 million for the quarter.

ANTI PIRACY

Astro also strengthened its efforts to safeguard the creative economy by joining the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s largest anti-piracy coalition, effectively placing the company in a better position to dismantle piracy operations that undermine legitimate markets.

Domestically, Astro secured key legal victories against piracy, collectively recovering RM287,000 in settlements, damages, costs and commercial subscription fees from cases involving a short-term rental operator, several restaurants, and an electronics store selling illicit TV-boxes.
Within the first half of FY26, the company also ramped up its anti-piracy enforcement, taking down 748,000 websites and social media links. Collaborating with leading global platforms, the company also removed 580 Telegram groups with 32.2 million subscribers and 5,000 infringing links from global video-sharing sites.

On the e-commerce front, enforcement actions saw 10.9k ads removed, 417 reseller accounts suspended, and two standalone piracy services websites taken offline.

Astro CEO Euan Smith commented: “This quarter has given us more reasons to be encouraged. Customers are responding to the simplicity and value of Astro One packs, and our newer Ultra and Ulti Boxes are driving satisfaction, reflected in the steady rise of our Net Promoter Scores. In August, we also recorded our first positive Pay-TV net add since 2018, a meaningful gain that signals all the hard work is bearing fruit. We also saw good momentum in Astro Fibre, which outperformed the market leaders in net additions this quarter. This reflects the appeal of our broadband and entertainment bundles among households. At the same time, the new engines of growth are taking shape.”

“sooka marked its fourth anniversary as Malaysia’s number one sports app. As the fastest growing app in Malaysia, sooka is also one of the top five highest-grossing apps on Google Play. Remarkably, this was achieved in a quarter without major sports tournaments, with engagement still rising by a third. This is a clear sign of how much users value the entertainment experience as much as our sports offerings within sooka.
This is not by chance. Our teams have been relentless in improving the app, from AI-assisted chat to smarter recommendations, while deepening partnerships, such as our new bundle deal with Maxis. Together with our newly launched two-year plans, these steps lay a solid foundation for sooka’s next chapter.”
“The road ahead will continue to be challenging, but Q2 shows Astro is still pressing on. We will keep on growing customers, strengthening the adjacent businesses, and reducing legacy costs, all the while staying true to our mission of being Malaysia’s number one entertainment and streaming destination,” concluded Smith.

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