Total revenue $570.7m up 12.2% (2009: $508.7m)
Dubai – August 10, 2010 - Inmarsat plc (LSE: ISAT), the leading provider of global mobile satellite communications services, has reported consolidated financial results for the 6 months ended 30 June 2010.
Andrew Sukawaty, Inmarsat’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, “Our first half performance continues to show the profitable growth in the markets we serve and we are well-positioned to deliver our growth objectives for the year. In June, we successfully launched our global handheld satellite phone as planned. The announcement today of our investment in the new Inmarsat-5 constellation positions us to expand our leadership in the global MSS industry. Both of these developments demonstrate our strategy of investing for growth in the markets we serve best.”
Rick Medlock, Chief Financial Officer, added. “The continued growth in both our cash flow and profitability strongly support the 10% increase in dividend announced today. Taking into account our new capital investment plans and the anticipated performance of our existing business, we are confident that our dividend growth can be sustained at the current rate for the next three years.”
During the first half our maritime revenue growth was impacted by the challenging economic climate in shipping. However, new additions of Fleet and FleetBroadband terminals have remained strong throughout the period and provide a positive forward indicator of demand for our maritime services. In addition, during the second quarter, we saw some improving trends in our maritime data business and we remain optimistic for improved maritime performance in the second half of the year.
Our land mobile sector revenue growth was driven by demand for our BGAN service and was boosted by additional BGAN demand in response to the earthquake events in Haiti and Chile in the first quarter. During the second quarter, we experienced a slowdown in BGAN demand in connection with lower usage levels in Afghanistan. Usage of our BGAN service in Iraq and Afghanistan has historically been volatile and resulted in fluctuations in revenue growth from time to time.
Strong aeronautical revenue growth was driven by particularly high levels of usage of our Swift 64 service. New additions of SwiftBroadband terminals remained strong throughout the first half and now far outstrip new additions of Swift 64 terminals, demonstrating market acceptance of this important service. Our leasing business growth was driven by new leasing business across our business sectors.
Outlook
As a result of our business performance in the first half and the successful launch of our handheld global satellite phone service, we remain on track to deliver solid revenue growth in 2010. We are also announcing a target average annual revenue growth rate for our Inmarsat Global MSS revenues of 5-7% for the period 2010 – 2014 (using the revenue for 2009 as the base year).
