Star: How is the satellite communications industry worldwide? in the Asia-Pacific?
Bowles: The worldwide satellite communications industry is generally strong at the moment, with many satellite operators generating healthy revenues and profits. With the general trend toward globalization, as well as because of the need to provide service solutions to different parts of the world, many operators are looking at merging with, or acquiring, other operators. So far, there have not been many such operations, but there are signs that things should accelerate over the next couple of years.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the market, in some areas, has been slow to recover from the difficulties experienced over the last two to three years, but there are concrete signs that the market is picking up, stimulating new projects with fresh investment. The Asia-Pacific will certainly be an area of significant growth for satellite communications in the medium term.
Star: How is the transponder usage in the Asian region? Is there a glut or lack of space segments?
Bowles: Transponder usage in the Asian region is now picking up quite significantly after a very difficult period. The exact transponder usage is difficult to determine; this depends upon the transponder’s frequency band, power and coverage. But the improving trend is general. It would appear that demand for C-band capacity over the region is strong (with shortages in some regions), and the demand for Ku band is still lagging slightly.
Star: How many Asian satellites are there now? Do we see more being launched in the next five years?
Bowles: There are approximately 37 satellites currently operational in the Asian region. To this should also be added capacities from international operators such as Intelsat, Panamsat and New Skies. In terms of new satellites for Asian operators, we foresee a recovering market, with about 20 to 25 satellites to be launched over the next five years.
Star: How does Arianespace see itself in this industry now and in the short term?
Bowles: Arianespace sees itself as a key element of the global space launch industry that has acted to promote space communications as a reliable and essential component of the region’s infrastructure. We are the only launch services supplier that has a 100 percent success rate for the last five years and this demonstrates that satellites can be a good business proposition. We have avoided high-risk projects that have caused losses to the finance services industry via the insurance of technical risks and risky launchers or investment in overly ambitious business cases.
Arianespace has consistently concentrated on the successful geostationary communications sector for the majority of its business. This is a very versatile business which has been able to grow in different markets over the last 20 years. The first satellites we launched were for international telephony and as that market migrated to fiber optic cables, satellites moved on to TV broadcasting. TV broadcasting is likely to always use satellites because it can address an infinite number of receivers – even fiber can’t do that! So as the initial rush to build TV broadcast satellites stabilizes, we are now seeing a high level of Internet traffic using satellites to go over the congested networks on the ground. In peace as in war, he who has the high ground market always has a strategic advantage, and we see the geostationary launch market continuing to be our main market.