Eutelsat ups revenues 4.2%
October 31, 2014
By Chris Forrester
This is satellite results season with Intelsat declaring its numbers on October 30, and Eutelsat following on late in the evening. Luxembourg-based SES unveils its numbers early on October 31st.
Eutelsat’s Q1 results (to September 30, were “in line with objectives” said CEO Michel de Rosen. Overall revenues on like-for-like sales grew 4.2 per cent to €357.6 million, with value-added services expanding 14.2 per cent helped by the growing importance of its Ka-Sat ‘high throughput satellite’. However, video applications themselves only grew at 3.2 per cent, while Data revenues also fell back 5 per cent. Perhaps surprisingly, Eutelsat’s governmental business grew 2.8 per cent, helped by new contracts and a helpful push from Eutelsat Americas, the acquired Satmex business.
Eutelsat’s contracted order backlog now represents 4.5 years-worth of capacity and is worth €6.3 billion. This is well up on its 2013 position (€5.4bn) but down €100 million on the June 30 position.
Eutelsat’s channel numbers are impressive, with 5788 channels now on air, plus another 322 on Eutelsat Americas, and up 16 per cent y-o-y. 629 channels are transmitted in HD, up from 439 last year and therefore growing at a rate of 10.9 per cent (9.3 per cent this time last year).
Eutelsat has 1,033 transponders of which 785 (equivalents) are leased, a fill-rate of 76 per cent.
de Rosen gave guidance of organic growth to be around 4 per cent for its fiscal 2014-15, and “above 5 per cent” for the following two years to June 2017.