Intelsat has revealed its Q2 numbers with CEO Stephen Spengler saying that there were continued pricing pressures as services renew for certain wide-beam network services applications, creating a headwind to year over year growth. There had also been some non-renewals of capacity contracts.

These pressures led to a fall in Intelsat’s contracted backlog, from $8.5 billion (€7.26bn) in March 2017 to $8.2 billion as at June 31st.

There will be good news, helped by the launch of Intelsat 35e, which successfully launched on July 5th and began in-orbit testing on July 24th. The satellite is expected to enter into service in Q3/2017. The planned Q3/2017 launch of Intelsat 37e on an Arianespace rocket will be the operator’s final launch of 2017.  The company said that while overall backlog was down, its new ‘Epic’ fleet grew its contracted backlog and now comprised more than 140 clients.

Intelsat reported total revenue of $533.2 million and a net loss of $23.8 million for the three months ended June 30th 2017.

“We are making progress on sales of Intelsat Epic services with several new contracts on Intelsat 33e now completed, demonstrating that our new satellites are delivering superior performance for our service provider customers,” said Spengler. “The introduction of new Intelsat Epic enabled services, such as our operationally-efficient wireless solutions for 2G and 3G network extensions, expands our market opportunities as we continue to deploy the Intelsat Epic network.  Progress on these optimised managed services, plus continued development of distributor relationships, support our return to growth as we complete our network deployment.”

Intelsat reaffirmed its overall 2017 guidance. Its Network Services division saw a fall of 6 per cent during the quarter-year, to $214.9 million. Its Media division saw revenues rise 5 per cent, to $222.2 million. Government revenues fell 8 per cent to $86 million.

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