Revenue rises at Inmarsat supported by maritime business growth

Mobile satellite communications services provider Inmarsat has posted a six per cent rise in total revenue in the year ended December 31st, supported by growth in its maritime data and aviation business segments.

Total revenue rose to $1.78bn from $1.21bn a year earlier. Profit before tax contracted 20% to $294m and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA - a widely used measure of a company's operating performance) excluding LightSquared declined in 2012.

The group said that the fall in EBITDA was due primarily to reduced margin at the Inmarsat Solutions retail level and increased operating costs for Global Xpress at the Inmarsat Global wholesale level.

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In the land mobile sector, the group reported that the expected decline in data revenues was due to the combination of troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and the comparative impact of significant event revenue in 2011.

Multiple business areas saw rises in revenue. Wholesale MSS revenues were up 2.5% and wholesale maritime MSS revenues increased 15%.

Growth in maritime data revenues was primarily driven by pricing and service package changes and increased take-up and usage of FleetBroadband terminals, the group said.

An increase in aviation revenue was driven by growth in revenues from Inmarsat's SwiftBroadband service, offset by a decline in Swift 64 revenues, due to lower usage by certain government customers, including usage related to reduced activity in Afghanistan.

The group posted a final dividend of 27.45 cents, up 10% year-on-year.

Rupert Pearce, Chief Executive Officer of Inmarsat, said: "We are making progress across a range of activities that strengthen our core franchise and bring us closer to addressing new markets with our Global Xpress services.

"We are pleased with the improved results from our core MSS business and we are confident in reiterating all of our existing revenue growth targets. At the same time, significant technical and commercial progress with our Global Xpress programme means we expect to begin network deployment in 2013 as planned."

Inmarsat's share price was down 2.86% to 646p at 08:45 on Thursday.

MF