StarHub’s new CEO upbeat on company’s prospects
SINGAPORE — StarHub’s new Chief Executive Tan Tong Hai (picture) expects the company to continue to be a good investment choice even as it faces a number of headwinds.
SINGAPORE — StarHub’s new Chief Executive Tan Tong Hai (picture) expects the company to continue to be a good investment choice even as it faces a number of headwinds.
Mr Tan, who was Chief Operating Officer, takes over today from Mr Neil Montefiore, who oversaw a 30 per cent increase in the company’s share price last year.
“Investors appreciate StarHub’s sound business strategies, proven track record of execution, healthy balance sheet and our attractive quarterly dividends. Our stock was one of the highest indicative dividend yield stocks in 2012, so I am confident that StarHub will continue to be an attractive stock,” said Mr Tan in an email interview. The company has a dividend yield of 5 per cent.
Mr Tan acknowledged that the industry faces a number of challenges, including mature markets and technology that threatens traditional models.
Still, the mobile part of the business will continue to be a key revenue contributor, he said.
“We’ve moved to tiered data pricing last year, and that will help us monetise mobile data usage, while maintaining a high quality of mobile data access.”
At the same time, the TV business offers potential even as rival SingTel continues its aggressive push to add subscribers to its mio TV service. StarHub remains the market leader with a subscriber base of 536,000 as at Dec 31, whereas mio TV had 398,000 customers.
“We will go beyond the subscription revenue and see growth in advertising across multiple platforms and sponsorship support to make our productions more viable,” Mr Tan said.
He added that the company plans to continue with its broad approach of offering bundled channels to customers rather than adopting an “a la carte” model which allows subscribers access to individual channels.
Bundles offer “value for money”, he said.
Under his leadership, StarHub will not be standing still as it seeks new opportunities in a mature market which may offer limited growth potential.
The company has formed a department to develop innovative new services and solutions for customers that will be brought to the market after evaluating their commercial strength.
Mr Tan also noted that StarHub is “constantly looking to bolster our digital content offerings by collaborating with strategic partners who are experts in their respective fields”.
However, the company has no plans to launch its own app store as Mr Tan believes “that Singapore consumers are already well served by the many mobile app stores available ... today”.