Mobile
Eutelsat approaching the billion € club
Chris Forrester ©RapidTVNews | 29-07-2009
Eutelsat unveils its full year results on Friday morning, and despite a few problems (see below) most analysts are expecting a solid performance helped by the recent W2A and Hotbird 10 launches, which will allow Eutelsat to accelerate its growth rate.The headline figure is expected to show growth of an impressive 5.2% in top-line revenues for the half-year to about €472m (and €927.6m for the full year to June 30). With that sort of progress under way it is more than likely that CEO Giuliano Berretta’s final calendar year with the satellite operator will see him being able to report the business will probably top €1bn in revenues for the calendar year 2009-2010. It will be quite an achievement.
However, dipping into the granularity of Eutelsat’s results will also be needed. For example, one analyst predicts that Eutelsat’s EBITDA margins have slipped during the past half-year from 77.3% this time last year to just 76% in the period ending June 30.
Mathhias De Wit, senior analyst at Petercam Telecom, anticipates a return to margins better than 78% helped by the launch of W7 sometime soon. De Wit, and the rest of the industry, will also be looking for some fresh newsflow on the latest state of Solaris Mobile, Eutelsat’s j-v with SES for the mobile TV and radio industry. Petercam is, however, expecting positive guidance in regards to revenue growth which might hit 8% in this current trading year he suggests.
© Rapid TV News 2009
