Inmarsat‘s Q1 2015 results showed a year-on-year fall in revenue and profit.
Total YOY Q1 revenues were $304.8 million, down from $344.7 million. This was driven largely by revenue falls of $12.7 million in the satellite company’s Government business and $27.8 million in the LightSquared business. Additionally, revenues from the Enterprise division fell $5.5 million.
However, this decline was partially offset by rises in the Maritime, Aviation and Wholesale Mobile Satelllite Services of $1.6 million, $4.9 million and $6.7 million respectively.
The quarter also saw post-tax profits fall to $77.4 million from $100.2 million in Q1 2014.
The results come at the end of a quarter that saw the company’s second GX satellite deployed, the third shipped to Kazakhstan and key voice and data services for mobile transitioned to Alphasat.
Inmarsat declined to revise its guidance for 2015.
"This was a solid quarter of trading, although starting slowly, in particular in Maritime and certain Government contracts," commented Rupert Pearce, CEO of Inmarsat. "However momentum developed well towards the end of the period, especially in Maritime, with strong growth in FleetBroadband subscribers and ARPU as well as XpressLink installations.
"We remain confident about the underlying growth and margin trends across all of our business units, and that we will deliver our wholesale MSS revenue target for 2015 and beyond."
He added: "Our third GX satellite, I-5 F3, has been shipped to Baikonur and is on track for launch in early June. We now expect commercial launch of global GX services mid-to-late in the third quarter, which is slightly later than originally planned but does not change our expectations for GX revenue growth in 2015 or over the longer term.
"There was significant progress in Aviation in the quarter, with several major new cabin connectivity contracts in advanced stages of negotiation, and the S-band license acquisition process moving forward well. Plans for developing our air-to-ground network are also progressing well."
