Jakarta. LinkNet, an internet provider under cable television operator First Media, aims to capture a million subscribers this year on the back of its new multi-screen on-demand content service.

The company had some 700,000 subscribers as of December last year, said chief executive Richard Kartawijaya.

“We hope that the X1 Combo service will contribute a lot to growth this year, as we’re sure the market will embrace the product,” Richard told reporters after the launch of LinkNet’s X1 Combo HD Packs service in Jakarta on Tuesday.

LinkNet also plans to sign up an additional 240,000 “homepasses” [sic] this year, he added. According to Richard, the company has rolled out about 1.5 million “homepasses” across Indonesia by the end of 2014.

The chief executive said LinkNet aimed to book up to Rp 2 trillion ($157 million) in revenue this year, which, if achieved, would amount to roughly a 30 percent on-year increase. The company’s full-year financial performance for 2014 has not yet been released, however. LinkNet booked Rp 1.55 trillion ($121 million) in revenue in the first three quarters of last year.

Downloading LinkNet’s third-quarter report for 2014 — at just 2.5 megabytes, hardly a hefty file — from the GlobeAsia newsroom, which uses LinkNet as its Internet service provider, took more than six minutes, at speeds averaging 9 kilobytes per second.

LinkNet’s new X1 service, which will be available in the Greater Jakarta area, Bandung and Surabaya, recently introduced a new-generation set-top box, which ties in with First Media Go, the company’s content streaming service.

“Indonesians are still heavy TV viewers with an average time spent viewing of more than four hours a day. On the other hand, Internet surfing has put us on the map as the second country in terms of longest time spent online in Southeast Asia,” Richard said.

“With more than half the population under 30 years old, we see this as an opportunity to converge the Internet and TV experience on one single entertainment device in the living room.”

LinkNet was listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in June last year and raised $42 million from the initial public offering. At the time the company sold 304.3 million shares at Rp 1,600 per share. LinkNet shares have lost roughly 7.6 percent of their value over the last month.

GlobeAsia and LinkNet are mutually affiliated through the Lippo Group.

GlobeAsia

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Source: The Jakarta Globe