Masood M. Sharif Mahmood, Yahsat CEO.

Yahsat’s recent acquisition of mobile satellite operator Thuraya gave the company a fleet of five satellite, a wealth of new C-, Ka-, Ku- and L-band resources, and the ability to reach new customers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South America, and Asia. According to this revealing interview with The Nation, Yahsat CEO Masood Sharif Mahmood’s post-acquisition strategy also includes an expansion into new applications in the Internet-of-Things space.

“[Yahsat] will soon enter the mobility and internet of things (IOT) market driving increased growth for the business. Everything is sensored and metered and [whether consumers] choose telecoms service providers or satellite is not a big challenge. What we’re seeing is that, as the industry starts providing live solutions on the sensors – mobile solutions – then the adoption of this will be on a higher sort of scale…When we mix our old fleet and the new fleet our satellite broadband will cover 60 per cent of the populations of Africa and 95% of the population of Brazil.”