[Satellite TODAY 04-29-13] Telenor Satellite Broadcasting’s (TSBc) revenues continue to decline. The operator reported revenues of 237 million Norwegian Kroner ($40.46 million) in the first three months of this year, a decline of 13 million Norwegian Kroner ($2.22 million) compared to the same period last year. This was one of the highlights of its parent company Telenor’s first quarter results issued late last week. TSBc said the decline in revenues is due to the phase out of the Thor 2 satellite.

 

    While its revenues have been on a downward trend recently, TSBc’s CEO Cato Halsaa believes the operator will see growth this year. “We are operating on higher utilization levels. This year for us is very much about preparing for the next growth step, which is the launch of Thor 7 next year. We are looking to use this capacity to meet existing and new customer demands. We are seeing increased competition in the broadcast markets in Europe. There is still a lot of growth and interest in the maritime VSAT market,” he said.

 

    Halsaa is leaving his position as CEO of TSBc at the end of second quarter this year and the company has announced Morten Tengs as his replacement starting this summer. Additionally, TSBc is also getting ready for the launch of Thor 7. “Overall, our number one priority is Thor 7. Thor 7 is being built according to schedule and should be ready by the end of the year. It will be launched in 2014. In terms of capacity, it is a balancing act between pre-selling capacity, and having capacity available once it launches,” Halsaa said. “Thor 7 has three payloads. It is one Ka-band payload for maritime expansion, a Ku-band payload for expansion in Central and Eastern Europe and then a restoration payload for all of our broadcast customers on Thor 5 and Thor 6. Beyond Thor 7, we have some other projects in the pipeline but we are not able to talk about them right now.”

 

    In other Telenor related satellite news, Canal Digital, Telenor’s pay-TV business, also had a tough quarter. It lost 8,000 DTH subscribers, but was boosted by better ARPUs. Canal Digital’s DTH business did see a revenue upswing. In the first quarter, it had revenues of 1.12 billion Norwegian Kroner ($191.21 million), a small increase compared to the same stage last year. In a further boost for Canal Digital, it has also been announced that it has signed a new deal with TV 2, one of Norway’s major broadcasters. TV 2’s channels will now be available during the years to come to almost one million households who are cable and satellite customers of Canal Digital.

 

    TSBc has a major presence in Eastern Europe, a key target market for the company. In an interesting move, its parent company Telenor announced Monday 29 April that it was acquiring Bulgaria’s second biggest mobile operator, Globul,which will give it a stronger presence in this market. The deal is worth 717 million euros ($933.94 million).

 

    While Globul has around 4.5 million subscribers in Bulgaria, Jeremy Green, principal analyst in Ovum’s Telco Strategy Practice is unsure whether this acquisition makes sense. “Telenor’s acquisition of Globul, Bulgaria’s second-largest mobile operator, represents a continuation of the group’s policy of seizing opportunities without too much concern for geographical or strategic fit. There’s no obvious logic to the acquisition, other than the fact that Bulgaria sits next to Serbia, another Telenor territory. The Telenor operator in the latter is delivering a decent margin compared to Telenor’s overall footprint, but most of the group’s growth is coming from the Indian subcontinent,”he said in a research note.

 

    TSBc itself has also made recent inroads into Bulgaria. In March, it signed a satellite transmission agreement with Neterra, a new DTH, white-label, shared platform, called “the W1,” which offers pay-TV services in Bulgaria. Neterra signed a deal for two transponders on TSBc’s Thor 6 satellite, located at 1 degrees West. The capacity will be used for video distribution in Bulgaria, where Neterra plans to offer other operators a premium pay-TV platform.