According to an NSR study, the global economic crisis did little to slow down the worldwide commercial satellite capacity leasing market. NSR estimates the industry picked up over $400 million in new leasing revenues in 2009, reaching $9.7 billion as of the end of the year. Further, results so far in 2010 indicate the sector could add another $500 million or more this year alone and increase total commercial satellite capacity leasing revenues by $6.6 billion over the ten-year period between 2009 and 2019.

“On average, the world’s commercial satellite operators are seeing annual revenue increases on the order of 5.4 per cent driven both by new capacity leasing and increased capacity pricing”, said the study’s author and NSR Senior Analyst, Patrick M. French. “Most important to industry revenue growth is the diverse set of C-, Ku-, and Ka-band transponder demand drivers plus NSR’s wholesale capacity leasing assessment for the High Throughput Satellite segment,” according to French.

NSR expects a net increase in capacity leasing revenues from the direct-to-home (DTH) sector alone to amount to nearly $1.6 billion by 2019 with a further $2.0 billion or more coming from capacity leasing into the video distribution and video contribution & OUTV markets. Turning to data services, NSR forecasts continued steady gains in the broadband services sector with growth in broadband VSAT networking pushing the increased lease of Ku-band capacity and satellite broadband Internet access driving HTS capacity leasing. The combined broadband services segment could add almost $2.2 billion in new revenues to the industry by 2019, plus other additional revenues will come from segments like mobility and backhaul.

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