Advanced Television

Intelsat reports “solid progress”

April 30, 2015

By Chris Forrester

Intelsat’s Q1 numbers showed some revenue reductions in most of its divisions. The one sector that showed an increase was its ‘media’ business, which saw revenues grow 1 percent to $224.8 million compared with Q1/2014.

The reduced revenues in its other key divisions affected the overall fill rate, down to 75 per cent as at March 30th, and down from 77 per cent a year ago.

Network Services decreased 5 per cent (and yet still represent 46 per cent of Intelsat’s Q1 revenues), while its Government business decreased again, this quarter by 13 per cent (compared to Q1/2014). Government services are 16 per cent ($94.8m) of Intelsat’s revenues.

Intelsat has 2200 transponders on station (plus some in inclined orbit) with an impressive 75 percent fill rate (but down from 77 per cent a year ago).

As a result of these overall declines the operator’s all-important backlog fell back some $300 million in the past 3 months from $10 billion to $9.7 billion.

Overall free cashflow for the quarter was $199.4 million., and overall Intelsat said that its Q1 performance was in line with expectations.

Categories: Articles, Business, DTH/Satellite, Results