On April 28th, satellite operator Intelsat will unveil its Q1 results, and there’s little doubt that change is in the air. The past few quarters has seen altogether too much doom and gloom associated with Intelsat, and now there are clear signs that as this year rolls out the businesses prospects look much healthier.

Indeed, Giles Thorne, a media equity analyst at investment bank Jefferies, suggests that this year’s benefits will be “back-end loaded” and not without challenges. Thorne suggests that there will be plenty of drag from its ‘Network Services’ division (Q1 down 17.9 per cent), but the slow-down from its Media division will be tempered (down 2.6 per cent).

Last August, Intelsat-34 was launched, and in a few weeks Intelsat-31 is scheduled for launch and both should start helping generate fresh business.

Jefferies says that Intelsat’s Government business should see “upside surprise”, and helped by a couple of valuable contracts probably coming Intelsat’s way.

Intelsat has also helped itself along with announcements about a link with Harmonic on Ultra HD, and its plans to back a ‘Space Tug’ mission extension vehicle to extend the cash-revenues coming in from some of its fleet.

Certainly, investors have been favouring Intelsat’s shares. April 22nd saw a 3 per cent rise to $3.56, a positive move following weeks of doom and definite ‘glass half empty’ pessimists.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Rivada: No hard news on funding
2. United Airlines will dump geo-satellites
3. AST SpaceMobile launched and ready to connect
4. AT&T boss: “Satellite constellations are great”
5. Starlink Texas factory capable of 4.68m terminals annually
6. Bank: Starlink facing multiple challenges
7. India stalls again on satellite licensing
8. Bank raises AST SpaceMobile target
9. AST SpaceMobile reaches $10bn market cap

Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite, Results