Arabsat chief: “DTH steady in MENA”
September 14, 2022
By Chris Forrester
Arabsat’s chief strategy officer, Abdulhadi Al Hasani, speaking at the recent World Satellite Business Week, says that the operator’s DTH television broadcasting is steady and not showing any decline.
Al Hasani said that one of the reasons for the strength of DTH is that streaming services are not well established in the region.
He admitted that while there was no longer the strong growth of DTH as in the past, it was not declining and described the situation as “plateauing” but without catastrophic changes.
Arabsat is continuing to invest in new satellites. It already has 10 satellites in orbit and two others on order. Its most recent order (with Thales Alenia Space) is Arabsat 7A which will be placed at 30.5 degrees East and will replace Arabsat 5A.
Al Hasani added that Arabsat would order a new high-throughput Ka-band craft either later this year or early in 2023. This would be Badr-9 and would launch in 2025-2026. However, there was considerable need for Ka-band capacity ahead of this satellite’s launch, and Arabsat was looking to rent temporary capacity from other suppliers.