Eutelsat headquarters in Paris, France. Photo: Eutelsat

Eutelsat Communications reported its financial results for its full year 2018-2019, in which it saw a slight decrease in overall revenue. The company reported revenues of approximately $1.5 billion (1.3 billion euros) for the 12 months to the end of June, a decrease of 5 percent year-over-year. Its Mobile Connectivity segment grew the most at 7.9 percent year-over-year, while its Government Services segment grew 2.3 percent year-over-year, but all other businesses reported decreases in revenue. Eutelsat’s Video Applications segment, which made up the bulk of its overall revenue at 65 percent, decreased 2.3 percent.

“On the operational front, the past year was notable once again for the resilience of core Broadcast, supported by rising channel count and HD penetration,” commented Eutelsat CEO Rodolphe Belmer. “The successful launch of EUTELSAT 7C will bring incremental capacity to the dynamic African market. In Fixed Broadband, our Konnect Africa operations are now up and running and our new distribution strategy in Europe is starting to bear fruit. In Mobile Connectivity, we have carved a strong foothold in the maritime segment with some major commercial wins.”

“In the context of a challenged operating environment which continues to weigh on the revenues of our core businesses,” Belmer continued, “the effective execution of our financial strategy has enabled us once again to meet or exceed all our other financial objectives with, notably, a record level of EBITDA margin supported by the successful completion of our LEAP 1 cost-savings plan, and the attainment of our Net debt/EBITDA target. By leveraging all elements of cash-generation, we produced a further strong rise in Discretionary Free-Cash-Flow, enabling us to exceed our target a year early.”