...strong consolidated net operating profits for the first half of the year at nearly 200MB. The Company reported consolidated net operating profits for the first half of 2012 at 198 million Baht, an increase of 182 percent over the previous year’s first half net operating loss of 192 million Baht. The strong growth in profitability is largely due to the Company’s core business, satellite operations, which saw YoY revenue growth of 17.5 percent from 2.6 Billion Baht to 3.06 Billion Baht.

“The results announced today show a steady trend of profitability started in the third quarter of 2011, and continuing through 2012,” Suphajee Suthumpun, THAICOM’s Executive Chairman and CEO said. “Our core satellite business is continuing to grow, and contributes nearly 80 percent of our revenues. In 2013, we will launch THAICOM 6, which will further cement our “hotbird” position at the 78.5 Degrees East orbital slot, and pre-sales of transponders on this satellite reached 18 percent by the end of the first half,” Suphajee noted. “THAICOM was also awarded an extendible 20-year license by the NBTC for THAICOM 7, to be launched in 2014. The license marks a new chapter for THAICOM, making our cost structure much lighter, which will give us a flexibility to further invest in our technology and to use our innovation to contribute to Thailand’s communication and telecom industry as a whole,” Suphajee said.

First half 2012 revenues were boosted by additional satellite services offered to broadcasters on THAICOM 5, and added revenues realized from IPSTAR clients, in particular, clients making use of the Company’s end-2-end solutions. “We shifted our focus from selling hardware to selling more bandwidth on IPSTAR, and in providing value-added services,” Suphajee explained. “This Open Access Policy will allow us to team up with 3rd party equipment vendors to expand our services into new segments.”

The Company’s Internet operations through CS LOXINFO saw an improvement in revenues year on year, while CSL independently saw a dramatic improvement in revenues of 100MB from the first half of 2011 to the first half of 2012. The improved performance was mainly driven byan increase in subscription services revenues for mobile content and ICT services as well as cloud computing. DTV, meanwhile, increased the number of satellite dishes and set-top-boxes sold into the market by nearly 250,000 units year-on-year, driving total unit sales to more than 1.3 million.

“The Thai satellite television market is strong and growing,” said Suphajee. “Earlier this year DTV launched the HDTV box, successfully firing up the HDTV market, and several new as well as existing entrants have started to focus on providing HD content. The future is HD, and THAICOM as a neutral platform can work with any content provider interested in broadcasting via our platform. The first half of 2012 has been a good half, and has proven that THAICOM’s core satellite business is strong and growing."