SES will unveil its Q3 results a month from now on October 26th, and a report from equity analysts at investment bank Exane/BNP takes a positive view of the satellite operator’s prospects.

“After several years of consecutive organic revenue decline, we expect the company to confirm its return to growth in Q3,” states the bank.  “We also believe Q3 will mark a further acceleration from the 0% in Q1 to 3% in Q2 and to 4% in Q318. We expect this improvement to be driven by a further acceleration in SES Networks itself driven by the entry into service of newly launched assets. With top line reverting to growth, SES could not only be a story on C-band but also become more appealing to long only, value players and other turn around investors.”

The report adds: “In addition, following the recent share price pull back over the last month, we believe the shares offer an attractive entry point into the C band story. We note that the ongoing auction of C band spectrum in Italy further underpins our view that the US C band opportunities is not priced in. As of yesterday, telcos in Italy were bidding USD24cents per Mhz POP. That is already 25% higher than our own pricing assumption for US C band spectrum despite the fact that Italy offers less attractive mobile ARPUs and licensing terms than the US. The auction in Italy has not closed yet. We think US C-band spectrum pricing could surprise on the upside. That is favourable for SES.”

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Optimism under threat at SES
2. Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ
3. Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case
4. SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers
5. IRIS2 already in trouble?
6. Intelsat contemplates next steps
7. SpaceX: 2.7m customers and $180bn value
8. Boeing, Virgin Galactic in court battle
9. Jupiter-3 a changemaker

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