PARIS — Thaicom of Thailand on Nov. 13 reported a slight rebound in sales for its conventional satellite business for the three months ending Sept. 30 and a double-digit increase in revenue from its IPStar broadband-satellite business.
Thaicom said its total satellite revenue for the quarter was 1.174 billion Thai baht ($35.3 million), a 9.2 percent increase over the previous three months but just 2.4 percent above revenue for the same period a year ago.
Thaicom’s revenue from conventional satellite services — leasing transponder capacity for television and other communications — was 574 million baht for the three months ending Sept. 30, a 1.6 percent increase over the previous quarter but still down 1.9 percent from the revenue total a year earlier. The company’s conventional satellite revenue is generated from the Thaicom 1A, Thaicom 2 and Thaicom 5 satellites.
IPStar broadband satellite revenue rose by 17.6 percent, to 600 million baht, for the period ending Sept. 30 when compared with the previous three-month period. The revenue increase was 6.8 percent when compared with a year earlier. The figure includes revenue from subscriptions to the IPStar service and from sales of IPStar-compatible user terminals.
Despite the increases compared with earlier this year, IPStar revenue as a whole is still down 5.9 percent for the nine months ending Sept. 30 compared with the same period in 2008. The cost of sales — including satellite gateway maintenance and user terminal sales and service — increased by 10.4 percent in the third quarter compared with the second quarter.
