Astro Malaysia Holdings continues to court post-pay-TV consumers, dropping contract requirements from its new low-cost X3 pack from December 2026 and focusing on strengthening adjacent businesses, particularly streaming service Sooka.

X3, which has no box or installation costs, starts at RM39.99 (US$9.79) a month, which is less than half the RM93.70 (US$22.93) average monthly revenue per residential pay-TV subscriber that Astro reports. 

In its Q2 (May-July) earnings report, Astro highlighted future focus areas as it swung to a net loss of RM28.8M (US$7M) from a net profit of RM15.9M (US$3.9M) a year earlier.

Q2 revenue was RM634M (US$155.2M), down from RM683M (US$167.2M) a year earlier.  

Content costs in Q2 were RM219M (US$53.6M), down from RM232M (US$56.8M) in Q1 (February to April). 

Astro said it had RM420.7M (US$103M) in contracted commitments for film library and programme rights at 31 July, down from RM472.5M (US$115.6M) at 31 January. Of that, RM275.9M (US$67.5M) is covered by guarantees Astro has given to programme rights vendors, against RM346.7M (US$84.9M) at 31 January. 

Astro said it produces over 10,000 hours of new content a year, spanning dramas, Originals, animation and movies. In the year to end Jan 2026, Astro produced 11,600 hours.

Movie unit Astro Shaw holds a 52% share of Malaysia’s box office so far in 2026, with RM59.7M (US$14.6M) of RM115.7M (US$28.3M) in local gross box office. 

Astro Shaw and its partners were behind the three highest-grossing local films of the year so far: “Tarung: Unforgiven” (RM23.6M), “Polong” (RM15.6M) and “Malaikat Malam” (RM14.3M). 

Q2 advertising expenditure (adex) was RM53M (US$13M), down from RM61M (US$14.9M) a year earlier, and RM68M (US$16.6M) in Q1. Astro said the decline reflected brands moving away from traditional media.

Within adex, radio revenue was RM22M, television RM18M and digital and addressable advertising RM13M.

For the first half, television adex fell 19% and radio fell 1%, while digital adex rose 6%. Astro’s share of television adex was 22%, down from 24%, and its share of radio adex was 71%, down from 75%.

Drawing attention to challenging pay-TV subscription trends, the company reported a 2.7% drop in its TV base as of end July to 5.09M households from 5.23M a year earlier. Astro’s share of Malaysia’s TV households now stands at 61%. 

Pay-TV ARPU at the end of the second quarter was RM93.70, down RM2.60 from a year earlier and RM0.20 from Q1.

Sooka’s VIP paying base, meanwhile, grew 52% year on year. Monthly active users rose to 1M from 948,000, and registered users rose to 4.29M from 3.37M.

Total minutes streamed on Sooka rose 45% to 1.08B in the first half of FY2027 from 744M in the same period the previous year.

On-demand service Astro Go isn’t faring as well. Astro Go’s connected account monthly active users fell 13% to 441,000 from 508,000 in the first half of the 2027 financial year from the same half the previous year, and its monthly active viewing users fell 19% to 345,000 from 428,000. Minutes streamed on Astro Go fell about 15% to 1.1 billion from 1.3 billion.

On linear television, Astro had a 69% viewership share, down 2 percentage points, against 31% for free-to-air channels. Average daily linear viewers on Astro fell to 7.1M from 8M, and free-to-air fell to 3.8M from 4.1M. 

Average daily time spent with Astro linear channels fell to 2 hours 15 minutes from 2 hours 23 minutes, and free-to-air fell to 1 hour 54 minutes from 1 hour 55 minutes. Astro said its subscribers spent 84% of their watch time on local and vernacular content – up 2 percentage points year on year.