News Analysis

Saltaire, UK, July 30, 2013 —  British set-top box maker Pace Plc said profits in the first half more than tripled, driven by continuing demand for its media-server products in North America and Latin American markets, which offset some softness in Europe.

Paris, July 30, 2013 — Eutelsat Communications on Tuesday reported a 5.1 percent increase in revenues to €1,284 million (US$1,703 million) and operating income before depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of €995.3 million (US$1,320.22 million) equivalent to 77.5 percent margins for fiscal year 2012-2013.

July 30, 2013, Germantown, Md.--Hughes Network Systems announced today that it has achieved carrier data rates exceeding 1 Gbps on its JUPITER System. Hughes believes this achievement to be a technology first for High Throughput Satellite (HTS) systems, resulting in more subscribers per satellite and greater capacity per subscriber.

Luxembourg, July 26, 2013 — SES S.A. reported slightly higher revenues of €910.5 million (US$1.207 billion) for the first six months of the year compared to the same period last year, and a flat operating profit of €408.6 million (US$541.85 million) during the first half of the year compared to €411.5 million (US$545.78 million) during the same period last year.

Fornebu, Norway, July 24, 2013 — Telenor has reported a return to revenue growth after strong performances in India, Thailand and Sweden. In the second quarter of 2013 Telenor Group reported revenues of US$4.37 billion (NOK 25.7 billion), representing an organic revenue growth of 2 percent. The company saw zero organic revenue growth in the first quarter.

by Peter Galace

Moscow, Russia, July 19, 2013--Russian officials have suspended all launches of Proton rockets following the July 2 launch failure of a Proton M rocket carrying three GLONASS navigational satellites into space.  The Russian Federal Space Agency, commonly called Roscosmos, announced last week that a Russian State Commission has been established and has started investigating the potential causes of the failure.

Petah Tikva, Israel, July 18, 2013--Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd.  today announced that it has revised its management objective targets for 2013. Revenue for 2013 is now expected to be between US$ 335 million to US$ 345 million as compared to the previously stated range of US$ 350 million to US$360 million and EBITDA is expected to be approximately 7% as compared to 9%.

London, UK, July 16, 2013--The European Union’s Digital Agenda calls for every citizen and business to have access to broadband that provides at least 2 megabits per second by 2013. Today that’s largely possible. In fact more than 99% of the population of the EU can get ten times that. “Now that twenty megabit bandwidths are commonly on offer and some tariffs offer customers unlimited data the case for satellite broadband has, in our view, reached a tipping point,” says Oliver Johnson, Chief Executive at Point Topic.

Cambridge, UK, July 15, 2013--Amino Technologies reported on Monday flat revenue of GBP20.1 million pounds (US$30.36 million) for the half year that ended May 31, but said its pretax profit rose to GBP2.6 million (US$3.93 million) from £200,000 (US$302,140) as the company benefited from rebates totalling GBP1.7 million (US$2.57 million) on duties paid on international product sales.

Amman, Jordan, July 8, 2013--New research from the Arab Advisors Group analyzes and compares the social media presence of 40 Free-to-Air (FTA) satellite channels in the Arab World. By mid-June 2013, news and current affairs channels BBC World, Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera English took the lead in the number of Twitter followers, while MBC Group had the highest number of YouTube subscribers on its channel.