by Virgil Labrador, Editor-in-Chief

The satellite industry will continues to grow in the coming years albeit at a more modest pace.  This was the consensus  among senior satellite industry executives speaking at the Satellite 2012 Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C. and Cabsat/Satellite MENA 2012 in Dubai, UAE held last month.  There are some concerns with the developing economic crisis in Europe, where three of the four major satellite operators are based, but the mood is decidedly bullish.

NSR’s Oil and Gas via Satellite, 2nd Edition report. released today, finds the Oil & Gas satcom market to remain lucrative over the long-term as bandwidth needs rise worldwide and emerging Oil & Gas markets increase their requirements. Traditional Oil & Gas markets such as the North Sea and Gulf of Mexico are now increasingly complemented by growing satcom demand in Asia, Latin America and the Indian & Pacific Oceans.

BroadcastAsia2012 International Conferencereturns with an impressive line-up of over 80 reputed industry speakers to deliberate on the most critical issues facing broadcasters today. Running from 19 to 22 June 2012 at the Suntec Convention Centre, the conference agenda foretells the ‘reinvention’ of the broadcast industry as content is re-purposed towards viewers who have become increasingly more mobile and who view content on various devices. Broadcasters are forced to reckon with this fact and gear up to cater to this growing trend.

Euroconsult, said that global budgets for space programs have reached a plateau of roughly $70 billion, confirming a slowdown in expansion experienced by the space industry for the last 10 years. According to Euroconsult's new report "Profiles of Government Space Programs: Analysis of 60 Countries & Agencies," Space programs received a short-term boost in recent years from several governments to counter the economic crisis. However, they must now undergo even more stringent budget constraints exemplified by the European public debt crisis and the U.S. Budget Control Act of 2011.

NSR today released its newest market survey and forecast report: Hosted Payloads on Commercial Satellites, 2nd Edition. The report concludes that, from an estimated $106.2 million in revenues for 2012, revenues for payload equipment, engineering services and commercial satellite operator hosting services are expected to range from $330.8 million to $554.0 million by 2022, yielding cumulative revenues of $1.8 billion to $2.9 billion over an 11-year period.

In 2011 worldwide TV shipments fell for the first time since NPD DisplaySearch began tracking global TV shipments in 2004, slipping 0.3% to 247.7M units. As reported in the latest NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report, LCD TV shipments increased by 7% to just over 205M units in 2011—a substantial slowdown from the double digit growth in previous years. With plasma TV shipments declining almost 7% in 2011 to 17.2M units, the largest decline yet, and CRT shipments falling 34%, LCD growth was not enough to offset these declines.

C-COM Satellite Systems Inc., a provider of mobile auto-deploying satellite antenna systems, announced  financial results for the fiscal year ended November 30, 2011. "We have closed our fiscal 2011 with the largest increase in the company's history in both sales and operating profits over the same period last year" said Leslie Klein, President and CEO of C-COM Satellite Systems Inc.

Comtech Telecommunications Corp. reported its operating results for the three and six months ended January 31, 2012. Net sales for the second quarter of fiscal 2012 were $99.1 million compared to $162.8 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2011. The period-over-period decrease is due to lower net sales, as expected, most notably in the mompany's mobile data communications segment.

GAAP net income was $5.8 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2012 compared to $16.1 million, or $0.52 per diluted share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2011.

Iridium Communications Inc reported solid financial results for the fourth quarter of 2011 and issued its outlook for the full-year 2012. Net income was $8.4 million, or $0.11 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2011, as compared to $10.1 million, or $0.14 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2010. Operational EBITDA for the fourth quarter was $44.3 million, as compared to $42.3 million for the prior-year period, representing year-over-year growth of 5 percent and an OEBITDA margin(1) of 47 percent.

After more than four years of discussion, debate and deliberation in February of this year the Australian government’s NBN Co. Ltd.