Credit: Business Wire
SES S.A. has announced a profit of €596.1 million for the year and three months ended 31 December 2017.
Some of the key financial highlights for the satellite company last year were a reported revenue of €2,035 million, down 1.6% and a net profit of €596.1 million.
Karim Michel Sabbagh, President and CEO of SES, commented: “2017 has been an important year of transformation for SES. We have established two market-focused business units, SES Video and SES Networks, and are now well positioned to deliver growth in the future.”
Moreover, 2017 saw SES Video report a revenue of €1,383 million in 2017- down 3.6%- including a Q4 2017 revenue of €351.5 million. While Video remains a competitive market environment, the business also had an unusually high impact from satellite health and launch delays, as well as some specific short-term factors at MX1 relating to the non-renewal of certain legacy contracts.
SES Networks revenue was down 1.9% at €646.1 million, including €156.1 million of revenue in Q4 2017. The Q4 2017 year-on-year (YOY) decline was primarily related to a significant transponder sale in Mobility in Q4 2016. SES Networks grew by 7.4% from Q3 2017 to Q4 2017 at constant FX.
As part of its business transformation, SES is increasingly focused on managing costs to optimise efficiency and growth. In 2017, SES reduced operating expenses by €4.0 million to €710.8 million on a like-for-like basis.
As of 31 December 2017, SES’s fully protected contract backlog was €7.5 billion (31 December 2016: €8.1 billion). Excluding the impact of the change in the EUR/USD FX rate, the contract backlog was in line with the prior year (of €7.6 billion) as new long-term contracts replaced the roll-off from revenue recognised in the period.
This was supported by a strong increase in commercial activity across SES Networks, where the annualised value of new business wins and customer renewals signed in Q4 2017 was double the amount in any of the preceding quarters.
