Inmarsat PLC Reports First Quarter Results 2015
Inmarsat has provided the following unaudited information for the three months ended 31 March 2015.
First quarter headlines
– Total revenues $304.8m (Q1 2014: $344.7m)
— Maritime up $1.6m to $149.8m (+1.1%)
— Government down $12.7m to $66.8m (-16.0%)
— Enterprise down $5.5m to $38.9m (-12.4%); underlying growth (excl. disposal) +6.9%
— Aviation up $4.9m to $27.1m (+22.1%)
–Revenues from LightSquared down $27.8m to $17.5m (Q1 2014: $45.3m)
-Wholesale Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) revenues $198.2m, up 3.5% (Q1 2014: $191.5m)
-Total EBITDA1 $176.8m (Q1 2014: $209.9m)
-Profit after tax $77.4m (Q1 2014: $100.2m)
Operational highlights
-I-5 F2 launched and now deployed successfully into geostationary orbit
-I-5 F3 shipped to Baikonur and on track for launch in early June
-Key voice and data services in the EMEA region transitioned successfully to Alphasat
-Significant progress made in Aviation contracts and S-band licensing
-First Inmarsat Developer Conference held, to drive growth of innovative solutions
“This was a solid quarter of trading, although starting slowly, in particular in Maritime and certain Government contracts” commented Rupert Pearce, Inmarsat’s Chief Executive Officer.
“However momentum developed well towards the end of the period, especially in Maritime, with strong growth in FleetBroadband subscribers and ARPU as well as XpressLink installations. We remain confident about the underlying growth and margin trends across all of our business units, and that we will deliver our wholesale MSS revenue target for 2015 and beyond.
“Our third GX satellite, I-5 F3, has been shipped to Baikonur and is on track for launch in early June. We now expect commercial launch of global GX services mid-to-late in the third quarter, which is slightly later than originally planned but does not change our expectations for GX revenue growth in 2015 or over the longer term.
“There was significant progress in Aviation in the quarter, with several major new cabin connectivity contracts in advanced stages of negotiation, and the S-band license acquisition process moving forward well. Plans for developing our air-to-ground network are also progressing well.”
Outlook
Our expectations for the Group’s performance in 2015 remain unchanged. The trading environment is expected to be broadly similar to 2014, with continuing underlying revenue growth in Maritime, Enterprise and Aviation and continued weakness in Government, particularly in the US.
The Group’s longer term guidance remains unchanged:
Wholesale MSS revenue is expected to fall within the 8-12% CAGR growth range for 2014-16.
Annual GX revenues of $500m are expected by the fifth anniversary of the global launch of commercial GX services.
2015 capex is expected to be in the range $450-500m, and capex in both 2016 and 2017 is expected to be below $400m.
The results conference call has been recorded and will be on our website shortly after the event.
Click here to view the Q1 financial results for 2015 and to listen to the results conference call, which will be available shortly.
1 EBITDA is defined as profit before finance income and expenses, taxation, depreciation and amortisation, losses on disposal of assets, impairment losses and share of profit of associates
