Photo: Gilat Satellite Network

Gilat Satellite Networks reported its results for the Fourth Quarter (Q4) and full year ended Dec. 31, 2018. Both Q4 2018 revenue and yearly revenue saw a dip, compared to the same period the year before. Quarterly revenues were $69.7 million, compared with $82.7 million in Q4 2017. Full year 2018 revenues were $266.4 million versus $282.8 million in 2017, a 5.8 percent dip in yearly revenue.

Yet, profitability remained strong for the company. Generally Accepted Accounting Principals (GAAP) operating income for Q4 2018 increased to $7.5 million, up 33.1 percent from Q4 2017.  Full year GAAP operating income increased 96 percent to $21.3 million. Adjusted Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) for Q4 2018 increased 17.6 percent from Q4 2017 to $10.5 million. Full year 2018 Adjusted EBITDA rose 34.6 percent from 2017 to $35.2 million.

“I am pleased to report that our strong fourth quarter concludes a year of important progress for Gilat as we advanced our business strategy and achieved substantial profitability growth,” said Gilat Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Yoga Ovadia. “We were successful in achieving our objectives through our continued focus on our growth engines of Broadband, Mobile Cellular Backhaul and Mobility In Flight Connectivity (IFC), along with continued efforts to drive costs out of the business,” he said. “We secured significant Broadband business around the globe over the past year including: NBN in Australia, Gazprom in Russia, ChinaSatcom in China, LASCOM in Japan, Hispasat in Latin America and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in India. In the Mobile market, we continued as the front-runner in the Long Term Evolution (LTE)/4G satellite backhaul market with expansion of projects with existing customers and additional contract wins such as Telstra in Australia. In the Mobility market, we reached an important milestone with our dual-band aero terminal by passing the standard for the environmental testing of avionics hardware and receiving the DO-160 certification. Lastly, we continued investing in product leadership, as demonstrated by the successful trials for aero and maritime connectivity solutions over Telesat’s phase 1 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite, as well as the announcement of the 5G-ready powerful solution that provides new levels of speeds and capabilities, in support of the growing demand of data consumption.”

Gilat’s Third Quarter (Q3) 2018 saw a similar trend as profitability also remained strong, despite a small dip in revenue. In Q3, Gilat reached milestone in that its partners, Global Eagle and Telesat, demonstrated the first live IFC with a LEO satellite, as well as a switchover between Telesat’s Geostationary Orbit (GEO) and LEO satellites.

As for looking to 2019, Ovadia concluded that “we will continue our focus on improving profitability, by further developing and expanding our existing growth engines, as we see continued reception to our services and solutions. As the market constantly evolves and requires higher throughputs and greater efficiency, we will also continue to invest substantially in Research and Development (R&D) and in our product roadmap, to maintain product leadership especially in the era of Non-Geostationary Orbit (NGSO) and 5G. “