Astro to achieve Full HD STB conversion by year-end

Malaysia’s largest pay-TV operator Astro aims to complete the conversion of its customers’ legacy set-top boxes to the B.yond HD platform by the end of 2013.

“We saw over 64 per cent of customers during the first quarter subscribing to HD and other value-added services, which in turn drove up our average revenue per user,” said Chief executive officer Datuk Rohana Rozhan at Invest Malaysia 2013.

According to Ms Rozhan, this was a sign that Astro’s strategy was working. “We swapped out 168,000 devices in the first three months of 2013, but are also prioritising customers who would most likely go for premium services.”  

She also revealed that Astro is set to increase its bandwidth capacity in 2014, allowing the operator to increase the number of HD channels on offer. Switching customers onto its B.yond services therefore increases Astro’s ability to charge premium rates and improves its ARPU.