Still suffering from the aftershocks of the Asian financial crisis, AsiaSat has announced reduced turnover of HK$376 million (pounds 30 million) for the first half of 1999, down 19 per cent on the previous year. Net profit was down 36 per cent to HK$167 million. AsiaSat chairman Qin Xiao said in a statement that the first six months had been "challenging". However, he said that there were "signs of renewed demand for satellite capacity, particularly for new applications including high speed Internet, broadband multimedia and direct to home services." As of June 30, the utilisation rate for AsiaSat 2 and AsiaSat 3S were 77 per cent (down from 83 per cent in 1998) and 37 per cent.