Satellite operator SES reported its numbers on April 30th but it has now emerged that the company’s O3b mPOWER Mid-Earth orbiting fleet is expected to grow capacity by 30 per cent this year alone, and more in 2026.
The additions to the fleet will bring critical capacity for customers in government, maritime and aero, CEO Adel Al-Saleh told investors on April 30th. SES’s overall Networks traffic (up 8.4 per cent y-o-y) is now 60 per cent of its total revenues. SES reported a 13.1 per cent increase in its government business and an 8.5 per cent increase in aeronautical and maritime revenue in the three months ending March 31st.
The extra bandwidth comes from the seventh and eighth satellites in the O3b mPOWER constellation that launched in December last year and which will enter service in the next few days, Al-Saleh told analysts. These two additional satellites have redesigned payload power modules compared to the first six satellites, four of which experienced issues with their power modules (and are subject to insurance claims).
Al-Saleh added that the current fleet is sold out and constrained by the lack of capacity, in particular from existing and would-be clients in the Government, Maritime, and Aero segments.
“With each satellite increase launch, we’re able to reconfigure the constellation to increase capacity. From May, we will be increasing capacity by almost 30 per cent to the constellation this year. We’ll start seeing this year an increase in capacity for all segments,” Al-Saleh said.
He told analysts that SES expected that this incremental 30 per cent capacity will be sold very quickly “because we are sold out in the other capacity. We expect it to be taken up quite quickly”.
Al-Saleh said SES was seeing a substantial increase in military space spending on both sides of the Atlantic, with multiple European nations announcing defense budget increases.
However, notwithstanding these positive moves, rating agency Fitch has revised its outlook for SES to “negative” from “stable”, while affirming the company’s Long-Term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) and its senior unsecured rating at ’BBB’. The revised outlook reflects Fitch’s concerns over potential investments for the IRIS2 project and the acquisition of Intelsat, which may not allow key financial metrics to recover within the expected time frame.
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