“Ongoing resilience” for Eutelsat
February 12, 2021
By Chris Forrester
Eutelsat’s half-year numbers (to December 31st 2020) showed what CEO Rodolphe Belmer described as “ongoing resilience” for the operator.
“Eutelsat has produced a solid First Half performance with Operating Verticals revenues down by 2 per rcent, reflecting our resilience in the Covid-19 impacted context, and with an EBITDA margin at 76.7 per cent despite the costs associated with Broadband ramp-up. Free-cash flow generation at the half year stage already amply covers the dividend paid in November,” said the company’s statement.
“The past six months have been dynamic from a commercial point of view with the award of a further EGNOS payload to fly on Eutelsat Hotbird 13G, a major wholesale agreement with Telecom Italia for the Italian capacity on Eutelsat Konnect and Konnect VHTS following a similar agreement with Orange in France, and several renewal and new deals in Sub-Saharan African broadcast. From an operational point of view, we have made significant headway on our Broadband strategy with the entry into service of Eutelsat Konnect and the reorganization of our retail arm, where the integration of Bigblu Broadband is progressing smoothly. In view of this solid start to the year, we are in a position to absorb the negative perimeter effect linked to Broadband transactions and to raise the low end of our FY 21 revenue objective,” added Eutelsat.
As to Eutelsat’s expectations for its full year, the operator reported guidance was being raised to an overall revenue objective to between €1.19 billion to €1.22 billion (and thus a slight €10 million increase in the lower target figure).