[Satellite News 08-04-08]  SES has seen a double-digit percentage increase in its net profits for the first half of this year. The operator reported net profits of 235.8 million euros ($367.11 million) for the six months to the end of June, a close to 14 percent increase compared to the same stage last year.
    Overall revenues remained stable. Revenues for the first half of this year were 788.5 million euros ($1.23 billion), slightly down compared to the same stage last year. However, SES believes the weaker U.S. dollar has had an impact.
    In terms of transponder utilization rates, the operator said the utilization rate across its entire fleet was 77.1 percent, up from around two percentage points compared to the same stage last year. SES Astra had a close to 80 percent utilization rate, with Americom at just under 78 percent and SES New Skies at just under 74 percent.
    SES Astra actually saw its transponder utilization rate decrease compared to March of this year. However, the operator now has 2,433 TV and radio channels broadcast over the Astra and Sirius satellite system, up six percent compared to the end of December 2007. It also now has 42 HD channels broadcast on its system. According to SES, SES New Skies performed “well ahead of expectations” with a number of new contract wins across a range of telecoms, broadband and broadcast segments. In the first half of the year, one of the highlights for SES Americom was a deal signed with Comcast for its HITS Quantum service, where Comcast has contracted the remaining capacity on the AMC-18 satellite, the fifth satellite in SES Americom’s HD-Prime cable neighbourhood. The entire payload of AMC-18 is now fully contracted.
    Romain Bausch, SES CEO hailed the results. He commented, “SES has delivered excellent results so far this year, and we expect this to continue in the second half. Recurring revenue, EBITDA and profit have all grown strongly. SES New Skies has continued to outperform, while performance at SES Astra and SES Americom has also been solid. Our competitive positioning is as good as it has ever been, and the outlook remains very positive as demand is projected to outpace supply.”