For the three months ending 31 March, Intelsat reported net loss of $174.9 million attributable to Intelsat S.A.
According to the results, as of 30 June, Intelsat had a contracted backlog of $6 billion.
CEO, Stephen Spengler (pictured), said, “We generated strong operating performance across all our business sectors during the quarter. network services benefited from new mobility business from FlexMaritime managed services and the recovery in North American airline travel resulting in higher inflight connectivity revenues. Solid results in media were driven by new business in our Europe and Asia markets and we also announced a contract expansion with a major media company that is expected to generate additional revenues in the future.
"The start of hosted payload service on our Galaxy 30 satellite and continued demand for our FlexMove land mobility managed services positively impacted our government business,” Spengler continued.
The $25.8 million gain on total revenue represented a 5% increase year on year, which Intelsat said reflected "the consolidation of revenue from our commercial aviation business". Of this, 44% – or $221 million – was generated from network services, an increase of 25% year on year.
Factors positively impacting revenue included in flight connectivity services and the expansion of services with mobility and network customers. The increase in revenue was partially offset by specific non-renewals and capacity and price reductions across mobility and networks customer sets.
Notable operating expenses included C-band clearing costs, which stood at $64.6 million of related expenses for the three months.
Spengler added: “Our results demonstrate that we are well positioned to capitalise on an improving economic environment as the global market leader in connectivity solutions. We are making critical investments to expand our leadership position through innovation. We expect these investments will generate broader opportunities to secure new revenue streams while simultaneously optimising our cost structure to compete more effectively.
"Investment in our next generation network is our highest priority. We are leveraging our unparalleled global orbital and spectrum rights, scale and partnerships to build the world’s first global 5G satellite-based software-defined network. The Intelsat network will support a range of access technologies, enabling an open architecture network for global mobility, the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G services with simplicity, coverage and performance.”
Intelsat filed for bankruptcy protection in May 2020, with Spengler at the time highlighting the firm's "substantial legacy debt".
Since then, August 2020 saw Intelsat launch Galaxy 30, a geosynchronous communications satellite that will deliver high-performance television distribution to its North American customers.
This was followed in September with news that Intelsat had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire commercial aviation business Gogo, for $400 million. By November plans were afoot to introduce the CellBackhaul service to the European market.
A debt restructuring plan was announced in February which saw Intelsat commit to debt reductions of $7 billion.
In July this year, Intelsat won a $150 million contract with GCI allowing the Alaskan provider to continue its use of C-band and Ku-band capacity, will adding state-wide Ka-band capacity.
