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The Return of a Pay TV Giant!!! Astro Malaysia Holdings (AMH) is poised to list on Bursa's Main Market on 19th Oct with a market cap of RM15.6bil . The largest pay-TV operator in Malaysia has a de factor monopoly, commanding a 99% market share. Are you excited, again? Background AMH is the leading media entertainment group in Malaysia with 3,100,000 customers and one of the largest in South East Asia. It is primarily engaged in the creation, aggregation and distribution of content over multiple delivery platforms including TV, radio, publications and digital media within Malaysia. What's the different from the then delisted entity? Recall that Astro All Asia Networks (AAAN) was the one taken private in 2010 by its single largest shareholder Astro Holdisngs SB. Meanwhile, AMH is effectively the domestic media business arm of previously-listed AAAN. How good was Astro Malaysia Holdings? A monopoly in the pay TV segment with 99% market share A capital intensive industry, creates ...

Recently, TM and Maxis concluded a 10-year agreement for TM to provide High Speed Broadband (HSBB) Access Services to Maxis. According to RHB research, Maxis with the agreement, can instantly roll out fixed home services to a potential pool of higher ARPU customers with last mile access via TM’s HSBB network to 700k premises , and up to 1.3m premises by end-2012. Currently, Maxis’ fixed home services is limited to Bandar Utama, Sierramas, Bangsar and Sri Hartamas via its own fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network. And, as Finance Malaysia know, Maxis is targeting to launch its service in the newly popular township of Puchong. Maxis's secret weapon - Content All in one, Maxis plans to roll out are IPTV, VoIP, video-on-demand (VoD) and high speed Internet. In fact, TM itself already offers some form of IPTV and VoD bundled in together with its core service of high speed Internet in its UniFi packages. Hence, content is indeed a very important element for Maxis to stand out. It is very li...

Wall Street Journal (WSJ) recently announced the result of Asia 200 survey, which ranked the top 10 companies of selected countries according to financial reputation, corporate reputation, quality, vision, and innovation. Want to know the winners of Malaysia? Wall Street Journal: "For the second year in a row, Public Bank Bhd ranked 1st overall among Malaysian companies. The bank's profit rose 20% to RM 2.2 billion on a 12% rise in revenue during the first nine months of the year. Customer deposits grew at an annualized rate of 12.2%. Public Bank, Malaysia's 3rd largest lender by assets behind Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) and CIMB Group Holdings Bhd (CIMB), also ramped up its Tier 1 capital ratio while touting a dramatically lower impaired-loans ratio at 1.2%, versus 3.4% for the industry overall." Source: Wall Street Journal Meanwhile, CIMB Group this year makes a new showing on the Asia 200 list, with a #7 spot. The group helm under Dato' Sri Nazir Razak,...

A lot of fighting happening on the business scene nowadays, with Proton-Fernandes and AirAsia-Tiger this year. In 2011, there will be a heat battle between YTL Comms and Astro , taking on the local broadcasting field by storm. Proton vs Fernandes   AirAsia vs Tiger Airways Business Times reported that YTL Communications Sdn Bhd planning to launch a hybrid TV by end of 2011, with many industry observers wondered how it is going to break the exclusive screening rights that satellite TV giant Astro holds with various TV content providers. " If you think you can do a monopolistic thing and control everything, I'm sorry, that era is gone . The game is over " said Tan Sri Dr Francis Yeoh, managing director of YTL Corp Bhd and executive chairman of its telecommunications arm, YTL Comms. YTL Comms is going to collaborate with US-based Sezmi Corporation to deploy hybrid TV services in Malaysia and Asia Pacific, which will combine digital TV broadcast technology with YTL's f...