Inmarsat Report Drop in Revenues
London, UK, Nov. 7, 2013 — Inmarsat plc reported today a drop in its revenues for the three months ended 30 September 2013 to US$ 306.9 million compared to $325 million during the same period last year. Inmarsat Global MSS revenues, however, grew slightly by 0.5% to US$ 187.6 million during the quarter compared to US$ 186.7 million during the same period last year. But Inmarsat Solutions revenues also dropped by 8.5% to US$ 188.3 million during the quarter from US$ 205.9 million during the same quarter last year.
Inmsarsat Group posted total EBITDA of US$ 168.7 million during the quarter, up 3.6% from $162.8 million during the same period last year.
Rupert Pearce, Inmarsat’s Chief Executive Officer, continued to display confidence and said third quarter results show that the company remained on target to achieve its objectives for the full year. “Our MSS subscriber growth remains solid and we had a record quarter for our maritime XpressLink service, demonstrating the growing market interest and potential demand for GX,” he said.
He also announced the company’s first GX satellite launch is now just a matter of weeks away, which will turn the company in a year of transition.
“The timing of these factors will naturally combine to apply some downward pressure on operating profits during the year 2014, but we remain confident in the outlook for GX and we reiterate our target of 8%-12% compound annual MSS revenue growth over the 2014 to 2016 period," he said.
The company said it is on track to complete global coverage for its GX network by the end of 2014. It expects the first Inmarsat-5 satellite to be launched in December 2013 and the two further launches to be completed in 2014. The ground infrastructure is already in place to support the first two satellites and Inmarsat is on track to fully complete the ground network during the course of 2014. Inmarsat expects commercial GX services to begin in the second half of 2014 after a period of extensive testing and trials.
In its L-band business, Inmarsat said it will shortly begin commercial operations using Alphasat, which will enhance its L-band network capability and provide in-orbit redundancy. This means, the company said, the loss of any one satellite in the Inmarsat-4 fleet will not impair its global coverage or its ability to support all of its revenues.
In market development the company is making progress in targeting new L-band opportunities, such as in the M2M market where its recent collaboration with ORBCOMM will significantly improve its service proposition. The company is also rolling out innovative new services, such as L-TAC service, which has already won new government business.
“With Alphasat deployed, our network is capable of supporting all of our L-band growth ambitions through the end of the decade,” the company said.
Inmarsat said growth in its maritime data revenues was driven by increased take-up and usage of its FleetBroadband service and by pricing and service package changes primarily implemented in March 2013. During the third quarter it added 1,702 FleetBroadband subscribers and saw continued take-up of higher value package based services.
In the land mobile sector, the company saw strong growth in voice services offset by a decline in data revenues due to on-going troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and by lower levels of BGAN revenues more generally and in certain territories.
The company is also increasing its aviation revenues driven by strong growth from its SwiftBroadband service, offset by a decline in Swift 64 revenues due to lower usage by certain government customers, including usage related to reduced activity in Afghanistan. Growth in SwiftBroadband revenues was driven by take-up in business aviation and for commercial in-flight passenger connectivity services. The decrease in leasing revenues, the company said, was due to a reduction in revenue from certain government aviation and maritime contracts.
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