Astro Establishes Home Shopping Business

KUALA LUMPUR: Astro and its subsidiary Astro Retail Ventures have teamed up with GS Home Shopping to establish a home shopping business in Malaysia.

Astro GS Shop (AGSSB) will be 60 percent owned by Astro Retail Ventures, while the remaining 40 percent is owned by GS Home Shopping. Astro's home shopping channels and services will be launched in the second half of this year.

Liew Swee Lin, the chief commercial officer of Astro, said, “We are pleased this partnership will bring together Asia’s two leading brands—Astro in consumer media entertainment, and GS Home Shopping in lifestyle home shopping. Astro’s brand promise is to continuously evolve our value proposition in our quest to serve our customers and all Malaysians better. We are happy that our partnership with GS Home Shopping is set to deliver a best-in-class home shopping experience for the convenience and entertainment of all Malaysians, especially our growing 3.8 million customer base. In doing so, we will complement GS Home Shopping’s know-how with our own capabilities both on and off-air including our talent, production and broadcasting facilities and customer service. We hope our customers will enjoy this new shopping experience from Astro from the comfort of their homes and on the go.”

Cho Sunggoo, the senior VP of GS Home Shopping, said, “We will put together all our business know-how that we have accumulated over the past 20 years in Korea and our global network in six countries outside of Korea to build a successful business model of home shopping here in Malaysia.”