KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA – Media OutReach – 10 March 2022 – Leading regional sports network SPOTV today announced the launch of mobile app, SPOTV NOW – bringing the world’s biggest and most popular sporting events closer to sports fans in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
SPOTV NOW streams, both live and on demand, world-class events shown on the sports network’s regional pay-TV linear channels, SPOTV and SPOTV2.
Sports fans in Malaysia can catch top riders like Fabio Quartararo, Francesco Bagnaia and Marc Marquez battle it out for victory in the adrenaline-charged MotoGPTM and WorldSBK World Championships, as well as standout moments of sporting heroes in World Table Tennis events, tennis Grand Slams – Wimbledon and US Open Tennis Championships, as well as The Open Championships (Golf Major), among other prestigious events.
Mr Lee Choong Khay (CK), CEO of SPOTV, said,“SPOTV is a leading regional sports network in Asia. We are very excited to bring premium content from some of the world’s most popular sporting events, right to the fingertips of sports fans in Asia. Centred around subscribers, our mobile app, SPOTV NOW, not only allows sports enthusiasts to pick and choose what they like, it also delivers the front-row-seat experience of watching their favourite sporting events, teams and heroes, whenever they want, wherever they are. We aim to delight our subscribers with the electrifying experience of watching a big game and at the same time, provide an avenue for them to relive some of the exhilarating moments in sports with our on-demand features. In the months to come, sports fans will get to watch exclusive content that is only available to SPOTV NOW viewers.”
First launched in South Korea in 2017, SPOTV NOW has risen to become the country’s top sports OTT platform. The popular app was also recently launched in Japan.
CK added, “Sport brings people together. We aim to replicate the success of SPOTV NOW across Asia – by bringing more localised and relevant content to our subscribers in each market, drawing them closer to their unique sports culture, and strengthening the bond among sports fans. In the near future, we will be rolling out SPOTV NOW to Indonesia, followed by Thailand.”
SPOTV NOW can be downloaded from Google Play Store or App Store.
A subsidiary of South Korea-based Eclat Media Group, SPOTV is headquartered in Singapore. Established in October 2021, SPOTV owns two regional pay-TV channels, SPOTV and SPOTV2, which are broadcast across multiple Southeast Asia and select East Asia territories such as Indonesia (MNC Vision, K-Vision, UseeTV, MAXstream), Malaysia (Astro, Unifi TV), the Philippines (Skycable), Singapore (Singtel TV, StarHub TV), Thailand (True Visions), Macau (Macau Cable TV) and Mongolia (Univision).
The two channels broadcast content such as tennis Grand Slam tournaments Wimbledon and US Open, motorsport championships MotoGPTM and WorldSBK, World Table Tennis and Badminton World Federation events, as well as popular Asian sports including the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) League, Korean Basketball League (KBL), V-League (volleyball) and V.League (Japan) competition.
SPOTV seeks to be an inclusive and dynamic platform that deeply engages the Asian sports fans.
#SPOTV
About ECLAT Media Group
Eclat Media Group is the leader in sports media in South Korea. Formed in 2004, Eclat Media Group services Premier League, UEFA Champions League, LA Liga, Serie A, MLB, NBA, UFC, and other premier global sports properties in South Korea through its seven sports channels under the “SPOTV” name, and South Korea’s first subscription-based OTT platform, “SPOTV NOW.” Additionally, Eclat also publishes the print magazine, Golf Digest Korea, e-newspaper SPOTV NEWS, operates an advertising media rep company, SPOTV Connect, and the PR company, Konnectivity, among other businesses.
SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 10 March 2022 – Leading regional sports network SPOTV today announced the launch of mobile app, SPOTV NOW – bringing the world’s biggest and most popular sporting events closer to sports fans in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Hong Kong.
SPOTV NOW streams, both live and on demand, world-class events shown on the sports network’s regional pay-TV linear channels, SPOTV and SPOTV2.
Sports fans in Singapore can catch badminton star Low Kean Yew and his astonishing shots in the BWF World Tour & Major Events, the ferocity of table tennis pros Feng Tianwei and Koen Pang at the WTT events, and other standout moments of sporting heroes in MotoGPTM and WorldSBK World Championships, tennis Grand Slams – Wimbledon and US Open Tennis Championships, as well as The Open Championships (Golf Major), among other prestigious events.
Mr Lee Choong Khay (CK), CEO of SPOTV, said,“SPOTV is a leading regional sports network in Asia. We are very excited to bring premium content from some of the world’s most popular sporting events, right to the fingertips of sports fans in Asia. Centred around subscribers, our mobile app, SPOTV NOW, not only allows sports enthusiasts to pick and choose what they like, it also delivers the front-row-seat experience of watching their favourite sporting events, teams and heroes, whenever they want, wherever they are. We aim to delight our subscribers with the electrifying experience of watching a big game and at the same time, provide an avenue for them to relive some of the exhilarating moments in sports with our on-demand features. In the months to come, sports fans will get to watch exclusive content that is only available to SPOTV NOW viewers.”
First launched in South Korea in 2017, SPOTV NOW has risen to become the country’s top sports OTT platform. The popular app was also recently launched in Japan.
CK added, “Sport brings people together. We aim to replicate the success of SPOTV NOW across Asia – by bringing more localised and relevant content to our subscribers in each market, drawing them closer to their unique sports culture, and strengthening the bond among sports fans. In the near future, we will be rolling out SPOTV NOW to Indonesia, followed by Thailand.”
SPOTV NOW can be downloaded from Google Play Store or App Store.
A subsidiary of South Korea-based Eclat Media Group, SPOTV is headquartered in Singapore. Established in October 2021, SPOTV owns two regional pay-TV channels, SPOTV and SPOTV2, which are broadcast across multiple Southeast Asia and select East Asia territories such as Indonesia (MNC Vision, K-Vision, UseeTV, MAXstream), Malaysia (Astro, Unifi TV), the Philippines (Skycable), Singapore (Singtel TV, StarHub TV), Thailand (True Visions), Macau (Macau Cable TV) and Mongolia (Univision).
The two channels broadcast content such as tennis Grand Slam tournaments Wimbledon and US Open, motorsport championships MotoGPTM and WorldSBK, World Table Tennis and Badminton World Federation events, as well as popular Asian sports including the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) League, Korean Basketball League (KBL), V-League (volleyball) and V.League (Japan) competition.
SPOTV seeks to be an inclusive and dynamic platform that deeply engages the Asian sports fans.
#SPOTV
About ECLAT Media Group
Eclat Media Group is the leader in sports media in South Korea. Formed in 2004, Eclat Media Group services Premier League, UEFA Champions League, LA Liga, Serie A, MLB, NBA, UFC, and other premier global sports properties in South Korea through its seven sports channels under the “SPOTV” name, and South Korea’s first subscription-based OTT platform, “SPOTV NOW.” Additionally, Eclat also publishes the print magazine, Golf Digest Korea, e-newspaper SPOTV NEWS, operates an advertising media rep company, SPOTV Connect, and the PR company, Konnectivity, among other businesses.
SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 10 March 2022 – Max Lewis Consultants Pte Ltd, a professional firm specialising in fair valuation of businesses and assets, announced today that they have been awarded the Best Business Valuation Firm 2022 at the fifth annual APAC Insider Singapore Business Awards.
The award was presented to Max Lewis Consultants by APAC Insider, a regional publication that focuses solely on businesses in the Asia Pacific region. It honours the most creative, committed, and results-oriented individuals and companies from a region that produces more than one-third of the world’s largest corporations. The Singapore Business Awards is one of the awards that APAC Insider hosts, which aims to recognise and promote businesses and individuals that are working relentlessly to boost the economy and help it flourish. Regardless of the size of the company, all candidates for the award were purely judged on their merit by an internal research team. The research team made its final decision based on a variety of factors, including corporate success, longevity, diversity, growth (sustainable or quick), key inventions, stakeholder input, and so on. This year, the winners of the award come from a range of sectors including interior design, finance, cybersecurity, and many more.
Max Lewis Consultants have provided its business valuation services across a wide range of sectors including manufacturing, educational institutions, coal mining, media and advertising, retail, GP and dental clinics, logistics, and technology startups. With a team of highly qualified in-house experts, the firm also provides other services such as tax planning, transfer pricing advisory, employee shares options plan (ESOP), and GST ASK review.
As tax laws and rules are changing and updating all the time, Max Lewis Consultants hope to ride on the wave of this award and continue upgrading their knowledge to adapt to the evolving landscape, delivering top-quality services and achieving future sustainable success with their clients.
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 10 March2022 – History is littered with the names of once dominant companies that were so focused on their successful core businesses that they failed to embrace innovative new ideas until it was too late. But introducing change can be difficult in modern organisations, as it typically involves dealing with contradictory requirements that generate conflict.
(Source: iStock)
To innovate, companies need to both think “out of the box” in their search for new ideas, while at the same time stay focused on outcomes and maintain efficiency in order to turn their ideas into reality. It is not uncommon for teams charged with coming up with innovative solutions to have to deal with “paradoxical” tensions that limit their ability to execute, such as tight deadlines and limited resources.
Yet new research by a group of researchers, including at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), shows that it is the ability to lead teams and individuals despite the very existence of contradictory tensions that could be the key to organisational success in today’s rapidly changing business environment.
Consider that America’s Eastman Kodak, one of the 20th century’s major photography brands, was known around the world for its ubiquitous Kodak film rolls. Yet it was forced to file for bankruptcy protection in 2012 after short-sighted senior managers left it too late to enter digital age markets. Nokia, the Finnish telecommunications company that was once the world’s largest mobile phone handset maker, also failed to adapt to innovation, notably the threat to its keypad-based products from touchscreen smartphones following the 2007 launch of Apple’s iPhone, and later sold off its struggling handset business.
The devastating effects and continuing global economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic – and the success of businesses that have quickly adapted to the “new normal” – have reinforced the importance of businesses adopting what this group of researchers have called “paradoxical leadership” practices to stay innovative and ensure their competitiveness and survival.
Innovation Sparks Paradoxical Conflict
Kenneth Law, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Management at CUHK Business School and co-author of a timely new study, says paradoxical leadership involves managers recognising the contradicting tensions generated by the competing demands placed on teams and individuals in innovative organisations and adopting a dynamic approach to manage the creative process.
It offers useful business insights by looking closely at how such leaders effectively overcome paradoxical tensions at “ambidextrous” organisations – those companies that successfully manage not only innovative exploratory activities, such as discovering, experimenting and searching for alternatives, but also its traditional, exploitative business interests, such as refining, executing and recombining existing knowledge and abilities.
“This new research expands our understanding of how to enhance workplace innovation through leadership practices,” Prof. Law says. “We were able to show how paradoxical leadership can promote both team and individual ambidexterity – particularly when the leader is able to communicate a strong and clear vision.”
Up to 1,169 staff working in teams at 12 companies in northern China and 312 other team workers at different Western companies – focused mostly in innovative fields, such as the research and development of new products or services in the media, software, information and medical technology industries – took part in the research.
They answered questions in three studies, all carried out at three different times over a six-week period, which saw team members ranked on their innovative ability and team leaders on their paradoxical leadership skills.
To leverage on paradoxical leadership, the research shows that leaders should seek to treat all team members equally in a fair and impartial way, while considering the specific needs of individuals and, if necessary, sometimes make exceptions. The new study shows that paradoxical leadership can help to settle differences that arise while promoting innovative solutions.
Prof. Law says team leaders with a strong understanding of paradoxical leadership are able to grasp two conflicting ideas – such as maintaining control while allowing people the freedom to work independently – and then integrate them into their plans.
Team leaders and middle managers also play an important role in explaining a company’s vision and direction to staff, so the way they communicate their ideas can have a significant influence on the effectiveness of their leadership.
The new research shows that the success of paradoxical management depends on leaders being able to communicate a clear forward-looking vision so that team members can understand “the big picture”. Companies should help team leaders provide clear ideas to staff, so they do not lose sight of objectives, and fully understand the thinking behind paradoxical leadership.
“Our findings show paradoxical leadership is a driving force in helping both individuals and teams to address the contradictory demands involved in the innovation process,” he says. “To achieve sustained success in today’s volatile environments, we recommend leaders think paradoxically and act integratively.”
Fostering Business Ambidexterity
Prof Law says the new research is valuable to businesses because it offers greater understanding about leadership in teams operating in complex and volatile business environments. It reveals not only what types of leadership behaviour promote innovation through enhancing the ambidexterity of individuals and teams – but also when they do so.
Managers, especially those leading work teams focused on providing new business solutions, should consider adopting paradoxical leadership principles and behaviours to foster greater business ambidexterity and innovation.
He says organisations should provide paradoxical leadership training to team leaders to help them to master a two-sided approach to resolve common paradoxes, such as ensuring flexibility while still enforcing clear work requirements and maintaining personal control of outputs while granting individuals the freedom to work independently without outside influence.
He says the research clearly shows that ambidexterity improves innovation – both among individuals and within teams – and will be of particularly use for companies built on innovative products and services, such as hi-tech enterprises and young start-ups, which may have a particularly strong need for ambidextrous work teams.
“Not all teams can provide high-quality innovative solutions, sometimes because they fail to move forward with their initial ideas, or try to implement things too quickly,” Prof. Law says. “But if businesses want to be successful, they need to provide training that helps to encourage teams and individuals to put an equal emphasis on innovative exploratory activities and traditional, exploitative business interests, and nurture paradoxical leadership and ambidexterity within the company.”
He says one limitation of the new research is that it asked leaders to rank team innovation across a range of different industries, rather than getting them to measure it objectively. Future research could consider incorporating specific ways to measure team innovation to increase the robustness of the findings.
Further studies could also consider and identify whether – and when – company ambidexterity is beneficial or undesirable for teams and individuals. It will also be worth examining the different forms of ambidexterity that exist in innovative teams, with some members tasked with developing novel ideas, for example, while others will focus on the feasibility and application of these new ideas, he says.
Reference: Melody Jun Zhang, Yan Zhang and Kenneth S. Law, Paradoxical Leadership and Innovation in Work Teams: The Multilevel Mediating Role of Ambidexterity and Leader Vision as a Boundary Condition (June 16, 2021). Available at Academy of Management Journal: https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2017.1265
This article was first published in the China Business Knowledge (CBK) website by CUHK Business School: https://bit.ly/3tcoeuo
About CUHK Business School
CUHK Business School comprises two schools – Accountancy and Hotel and Tourism Management – and four departments – Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics, Finance, Management and Marketing. Established in Hong Kong in 1963, it is the first business school to offer BBA, MBA and Executive MBA programmes in the region. Today, CUHK Business School offers 10 undergraduate programmes and 20 graduate programmes including MBA, EMBA, Master, MSc, MPhil and Ph.D. The School currently has more than 4,500 undergraduate and postgraduate students from 20+ countries/regions.
In the Financial Times Executive MBA ranking 2021, CUHK EMBA is ranked 19th in the world. In FT‘s 2022 Global MBA Ranking, CUHK MBA is ranked 50th. CUHK Business School has the largest number of business alumni (40,000+) among universities/business schools in Hong Kong – many of whom are key business leaders.
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 9 March 2022 – The world’s largest telecommunications infrastructure service provider China Tower Corporation Limited (“China Tower”, or the “Company”) (Stock Code: 0788.HK) is pleased to announce its annual results for the year ended 31 December 2021.
Performance Highlights
RMB Million
2021
2020
Change
Operating revenue
86,585
81,099
6.8%
EBITDA
63,017
59,527
5.9%
Profit attributable to owners of the Company
7,329
6,428
14.0%
Basic earnings per share (RMB yuan)
0.0419
0.0368
13.9%
Key operating data
Number of tower sites (thousand)
2,038
2,023
0.7%
Number of tower tenants (thousand)
3,459
3,361
2.9%
Tower tenancy ratio (tower tenants / tower site)
1 .70
1 .66
2.4%
Our revenue maintained a healthy growth and increased steadily in 2021 and our profitability continued to improve. In 2021, we recorded operating revenue of RMB86,585 million, with a year-on-year increase of 6.8%. Our EBITDA1 reached RMB63,017 million, up by 5.9% year-on-year, with an EBITDA margin2 of 72.8%. Profit attributable to owners of the Company amounted to RMB7,329 million, up by 14.0% year-on-year, with a net profit margin of 8.5%.
We maintained a stable and abundant cash flow. In 2021, net cash generated from operating activities amounted to RMB60,503 million, while capital expenditures reduced by 32.1% year-on-year to RMB25,192 million, resulting in our free cash flow3 increasing 72.9% year-on-year to reach RMB35,311 million. Our debt leverage ratio was stable and manageable, and our financial position remained healthy. As of 31 December 2021, our total assets amounted to RMB323,259 million, and our interest-bearing liabilities stood at RMB101,304 million, representing a gearing ratio4 of 33.4%.
Aligned with our commitment to providing good returns to our shareholders, the board of directors of the Company recommends paying a final dividend of RMB0.02624 per share (pre-tax) for the year ended 31 December 2021, equivalent to a payout ratio of 70% of our annual distributable net profit.
Supporting the construction of 5G network in an intensive and effective manner, our TSP business continued to grow steadily
Our belief in sharing and creating synergy continued to prevail as the coverage and depth of the 5G networks extended constantly at an even faster rate. Based on the new features of 5G network construction, we fully leveraged our advantages in resource coordination and sharing, as well as expertise in operations, to launch innovative and cost-effective products and solutions. We integrated these products and solutions to speed up the launch of our integrated wireless communications coverage solutions and DAS sharing solutions to meet the network coverage demands of our customers by offering a low-cost, highly efficient and quality service. In 2021, we completed approximately 552,000 5G construction projects, supporting the large-scale construction of 5G networks in an economic and efficient manner. Meanwhile, 5G has become an increasingly key driver for the growth of our TSP business, which in turn propelled our overall business to grow steadily, cementing our position as the market leader in the construction and operation of telecommunications infrastructure.
As of the end of 2021, the total number of our tower sites had reached 2.038 million, representing a net increase of 15,000 compared to the end of 2020. The total number of TSP tenants amounted to 3.260 million, 85,000 more than at the end of 2020. Our TSP tenancy ratio increased from 1.57 at the end of 2020 to 1.60. In terms of our DAS business, we covered buildings with a cumulative area of 4.99 billion square meters, up by 22.9% year-on-year, while the cumulative length of high-speed railway tunnels and subways covered reached 16,906.0 kilometers, an increase of 33.1% year-on-year.
In 2021, our TSP business revenue recorded a year-on-year increase of 4.3% to RMB80,197 million, of which tower business revenue increased by 3.4% year-on-year to RMB75,857 million and DAS business revenue increased by 23.0% year-on-year to RMB4,340 million.
Focused on boosting new growth momentum, the development of Two Wings business started to show remarkable results
We seized the opportunities brought by the development of the digital economy and actively responded to the national “dual carbon” goals. Leveraging our unique advantages in resources and capabilities, we maintained a clear focus on product innovation and platform optimization to fortify our core competencies and expand our market. As a result, the Two Wings business continued to scale rapidly, helping to strengthen the multi-pillar development structure and create new growth momentum for the Company. In 2021, our Two Wings business recorded revenue of RMB6,131 million, or an increase of 55.6% year-on-year. It accounted for 7.1% of overall operating revenue and contributed 40.0% to the incremental revenue in the year.
Focused on key sectors, the Smart Tower business sustained a rapid growth. We seized the opportunity of digital transformation across the society, drawing on our abundant site resources and our largest domestic tower sharing and practical Internet of Things platforms to focus on key sectors centered around our Tower Monitoring service to drive the transformation of telecommunications towers into digital towers. With a coordinated approach, we continued to delve into key sectors including forestry, water conservation, agriculture and environmental protection, which are connected to major national projects such as the conservation of the Yangtze River, and forest and grassland fire prevention. As a result, we achieved a rapid growth and established our brand as a company that serves people’s livelihoods and makes contribution to social governance. We developed our innovative national “Tower Monitoring” platform and deepened strategic cooperation with industry partners in the areas of algorithms, cloud resources, transmission and terminals, in order to grow together with our partners. In 2021, our Smart Tower business achieved revenue of RMB4,060 million, a year-on-year increase of 35.2%, of which 51.6% was contributed by our Tower Monitoring business. Our Tower Monitoring business achieved revenue of RMB2,096 million. This reflects a continued shift of our business from resource leasing towards digital applications with higher value.
Further strategic planning helped our Energy business grow in scale. Drawing on our expertise in energy operations and securing power supply, we continued to expand the scale of operations of our Energy business, centering around core areas such as battery exchange and power backup. We accelerated the economical and efficient establishment of internet-connected, environmentally friendly and smart battery exchange facilities, with a focus on key sectors such as finance, healthcare and transportation. We also introduced four-in-one power security solutions that cover power backup, power generation, monitoring and maintenance, which drove a rapid growth in the number of users and revenue. As of the end of 2021, we had developed a cumulative 612,000 users for our tower battery exchange services, an increase of 311,000 from the end of 2020, making us the largest operator of battery exchange services for light electric vehicles in China. Our Energy business recorded revenue of RMB2,071 million in 2021 with a year-on-year increase of 121.5%, of which the tower battery exchange business accounted for revenue of RMB1,243 million, representing a growth of 239.6% year-on-year.
Mr. Zhang Zhiyong, Chairman of China Tower said, “Looking ahead, we will further our ‘One Core and Two Wings’ strategy to seize opportunities arising from the development of 5G new infrastructure and the digital economy, as well as the ‘dual carbon’ goals. Our position as a ‘world-class integrated information and communications infrastructure service provider and a highly competitive information and new energy applications provider’ will see us developing an operating system that is professional, intensive, delicate, efficient and digitalized. We will use this to build an enterprise centered around sharing, service, innovation, technology and value creation. We will sustain the stable growth of our operating results and strive for value growth and the sustainable and high-quality development of the Company.”
About China Tower
Since its incorporation on 15 July 2014, China Tower Corporation Limited (“China Tower”) has developed into the world’s largest telecommunications tower infrastructure service provider with compelling market advantage under the national strategy of Cyberpower. The Company implements the strategy of “One Core and Two Wings”. “One core” refers to the traditional tower business and indoor Distributed Antenna System (DAS) business, which provide services to the TSPs based on site resources; while “Two Wings” refers to the Smart Tower business which mainly provides tower site resources and information services to different industries, as well as Energy business to satisfy the growing demands on innovative energy services in the society, such as battery exchange, power backup and charging. China Tower adheres to the “sharing” philosophy for business development. It promotes site co-location and provides a wide range of services to fulfill the specific needs of its customers. As of the end of December 2021, the Company’s total assets amounted to RMB323,232 million. China Tower operated and managed 2.038 million tower sites across 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in the PRC, and served over 3.459 million tenants with the tenancy ratio of 1.70.
#ChinaTower
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
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