Euroconsult report recognizes a turning point for FSS operators

July 12, 2012

Euroconsult, announced the findings of its most recent study of fixed satellite services. Company Profiles, Analysis of FSS Operators, now in its 5th edition, is the only report available worldwide which provides in-depth profiles of all 38 currently-active FSS satellite operators, plus nine companies that will launch commercial satellites in the near future. Through these detailed profiles, Euroconsult provides insight into individual operators and paints a picture of the overall market.

2011 was a particularly important year for FSS operators as a number of countries announced their national satellite systems and several historically hot geographic markets such as Afghanistan and Africa saw decrease in business due to political changes or the arrival of fibre networks." said Wei LI, Senior Consultant at Euroconsult. "As the result, FSS operators are becoming “smarter” in investing their space assets. We see a number of partnerships, co-shared satellite, and hosted payload announced in the last 18 months."

Mr. LI continued, "2011 saw more contrasted performances among operators than previous years. 80% of all active FSS operators saw revenue growth in 2011, with 13 operators even achieving growth of 10% or more; however more than half experienced slower revenue growth than during the previous year."

The report indicates that regional operators in particular continued to see strong business growth from various applications including DTH TV broadcasting, cellular backhaul and enterprise networks. Many of these regional operators are continuing their ambitious expansion plans with growing satellite fleets and a number of satellite launches still ahead in the coming years.