Feb

Astro Sets In 30percent Of Households Illegal

Written by Jimi-Ha on 22 February 2012.

Bandar Seri Begawan - Kristal Astro Sdn Bhd is currently working with Brunei's regulator in the Ministry of Communications to come up with an avenue for people who are using illegal Astro sets to exchange them with legitimate Astro sets in the country. It is estimated that around 30 per cent of the households in the country are using illegal Astro sets smuggled from a neighbouring country.

The move, which is still in the pipeline, was revealed by DST's CEO Idris Vasi with Awang Matnarudin Ibrahim, General Manager of Kristal Astro and Ramlah Hj Rabaha, Senior Manager of Kristal Astro during a press conference to announce the new revised packages for subscribers of Kristal Astro Sdn Bhd.

According to Ramlah Hj Rabaha, "Our main competitors now are people in the country that are subscribing to Astro in Malaysia. We are working with the authority to legalise and transfer their sets to Brunei's Kristal Astro."

Awang Matnarudin Ibrahim said, "At the moment we don't accept Astro sets from Malaysia. The Astro sets smuggled into the country are considered illegal, we cannot accept them and we need endorsement from the authority to accept them. We want people who subscribe to Malaysia Astro to subscribe to us. However, we need approval from the authority."

According to the General Manager of Kristal Astro Sdn Bhd, "When we go around the country or villages, we can see that of 100 houses, 70 houses have Astro. According to Kristal Astro, we have a penetration of 44 per cent, therefore 26 per cent is illegal."

Mr Idris Vasi said, "From the estimation of the whole population, there are 80,000 to 90,000 household in the country. We have around 40 per cent penetration rate while the remaining 30 per cent are illegal subscribers and the other 30 per cent is not subscribing to anything."

He added, "The 30 per cent of illegal subscribers is our addressable market with the entry pricing of our new affordable package of entry level Family package as well as the 50 per cent off for the subsequent subscriptions. We also want to address the percentage of Bruneians who don't subscribe to Astro."

DST's CEO also stressed the need to improve enforcement on the use of illegal Astro sets in Brunei.

--Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin