7th May 2014 08:27
LONDON (Alliance News) - Inmarsat PLC said Wednesday first quarter revenues rose 9.9%, driven by its wholesale mobile satellite services business and stronger retail operations.
The mobile satellite company said revenues for the three months to March 31, 2014 rose 9.9% to USD322.7 million from USD313.7 million in the comparable quarter last year.
Inmarsat said total global MSS revenues were up 3.7% to USD191.5 million from USD184.6 million in 2013. On a divisional basis, MSS maritime revenues were up 6% and MSS aviation revenues were 20% higher.
Adjusted total revenues, which excludes USD45.3 million in revenue from Inmarsat's Cooperation Agreement with LightSquared, were down on last year at USD299.4 million from USD310.8 million.
The firm said growth in its maritime revenues was driven by increased take-up and usage of the FleetBroadband service; during the period the firm added a further 1,847 FleetBroadband subscribers and ended the quarter with an installed base of 42,891 active FleetBroadband terminals.
The land mobile sector saw revenue growth from IsatPhone Pro and M2M services offset by a decline in Broadband Global Area Network revenues primarily due to on-going troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, but also from lower BGAN usage levels more generally, it said.
Aviation and leasing revenues rose, said Inmarsat, boosted by strong growth in subscribers and ARPU for our SwiftBroadband service, but offset by a decline in Swift 64 revenues due to lower usage by certain government customers, including usage related to reduced activity in Afghanistan.
During the quarter, LightSquared elected to restart Phase 2 of its Cooperation Agreement with the company, triggering quarterly payments to Inmarsat of USD12.5 million to begin in June 2014 with an additional USD5 million for the first 10 quarters. In connection with this, the firm said LightSquared made a USD5 million payment to Inmarsat which was recorded as revenue within 'Other Income' during the quarter.
Within the Inmarsat Solutions division, broadband and other MSS revenues declined 10.8% to USD86.3 million from USD96.8 million, which the firm said was primarily due to a reduction in revenue from the managed network services segment of its US Government business unit and the disposal of energy operations to RigNet with effect from 31 January.
Looking ahead, Inmarsat said its GX programme remains on track and is set to launch the Inmarsat-5 F2 and F3 satellites to complete its "global coverage" by the end of 2014. The firm noted that it believes - and has been advised - that current US and EU restrictions in place against the Russian Federation do not affect its launch plans.
"Market interest in GX is building and a number of high profile customers have committed to service trials. New business for GX was signed during the quarter and GX service testing is progressing well. We remain confident that commercial GX services will be introduced in July in line with our plan," said Rupert Pearce, Inmarsat's Chief Executive.
Shares in the FTSE 250-listed company were trading 0.48% higher at 730 pence per share Wednesday morning.
By Alice Attwood; [email protected]; @AliceAtAlliance
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