Malaysian satellite fleet operator Measat, which is being purchased by its existing major shareholder in a transaction that will take the company private, expects its 2011 revenue to surpass $100 million as it expands its direct-broadcast television market, Measat Chief Operating Officer Paul Brown-Kenyon said.
Measat, which is expanding westward, most recently with the use of an orbital slot at 46 degrees east that it will develop with the slot’s owner, the government of Azerbaijan, is forecasting continued strong growth based on demand from its biggest customer, satellite television broadcaster Astro All-Asian Networks.
Brown-Kenyon said this customer alone, which leased four transponders aboard Measat spacecraft five years ago and now occupies 18 transponders, is likely to increase its demand to between 30 and 36 transponders by 2015. Astro is owned by the same group that will be taking full control of Measat.
Brown-Kenyon said Measat has begun testing Ku- and Ka-band technologies for potential broadband delivery platforms to determine the relative merits of each given the regional climate.
“In Asia, it rains, and as you move from C-band to Ku- and then to Ka-band, rain fade becomes more and more significant,” Brown-Kenyon said Sept. 8. “We’re looking at both Ku- and Ka-band and we’re tracking developments in the technology, but it’s more likely to be Ku-band” that the company will use for its broadband service.
Measat’s revenue for the first six months of 2010 was up 29 percent, to 140.4 million ringgit ($43.2 million), compared with the same period a year earlier. Its four in-orbit satellites were 83 percent full at the end of 2009, compared with 73 percent a year earlier.
