Telesat Q1 revenues down 4%
May 3, 2019
Telesat has announced its financial results for the three-month period ended March 31st 2019.
The Canadian satellite comms company reported consolidated revenues of C$222 million (€147.8m), a decrease of 4 per cent compared to the same period in 2018.
The company said the decrease was primarily due to a decrease in short-term services provided to other satellite operators, lower equipment sales to a North American customer and lower revenue from certain customers in the resource sector, partially offset by revenues from the Telstar 19 VANTAGE and Telstar 18 VANTAGE satellites, which entered commercial service in late 2018.
Operating expenses of C$39million for the quarter were 3 per cent higher than the same period in 2018.
“The first quarter of 2019 was an active one and I am pleased with both our financial and operational performance,” commented Dan Goldberg, Telesat’s President and CEO. “We signed a number of important customer contracts in the quarter, including a significant renewal for direct to home satellite services in Canada, a meaningful contract on our new Telstar 18 VANTAGE satellite for rural broadband services in Indonesia, and a range of contracts for mobility services, including our first customer contract on our planned Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation, which is an exciting development.
“We are seeing strong demand for the disruptive, ultra low latency, broadband offering that our advanced LEO constellation will provide and, in this regard, were pleased to see the commitment by the Government of Canada in the recent 2019 Federal budget to make use of LEO satellite services to help bridge the digital divide in Canada. Looking ahead we remain heavily focused on increasing the utilisation of our in-orbit satellites and executing on our key growth initiatives, particularly our LEO programme,” Goldberg concluded.