By Leo Marchandon
(Reuters) -European satellite company SES reported second-quarter sales and core earnings above market expectations and confirmed its 2025 guidance on Thursday, buoyed by its strong backlog of government contracts.
“We have a robust pipeline of Government opportunities supported by increased defence spending in Europe,” CEO Abdel Al-Saleh said in a statement.
It recently announced a partnership with the government of Luxembourg to develop and launch a new defence satellite.
SES completed its $3.1 billion acquisition of rival Intelsat earlier this month, as it seeks to position itself as a key European competitor to Elon Musk’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper alongside French peer Eutelsat.
It has forecasted 1.8 billion euros in annual operating profit for the newly-merged entity, and recently appointed David Broadbent, formerly with Intelsat, to lead the combined government and defence divisions.
The Luxembourg-based company signed 690 million euros ($789.15 million) worth of new contracts in the first half of 2025, with a gross backlog of 4.2 billion euros at the end of the period.
SES said its up to 1.8 billion euro investment in the European Union’s IRIS² satellite constellation would average 400 million euros annually in 2027-2030. IRIS² will deploy up to 170 satellites to provide secure communications for EU governments and commercial broadband services to underserved areas.
The company’s total revenue reached 469 million euros in the second quarter, ahead of analysts’ 464 million euro forecast provided by SES. Adjusted core earnings (EBITDA) of 241 million euros also beat the market forecast of 232 million euros.
However, SES reported a second-quarter net loss attributable to shareholders of 15 million euros, while analysts had expected a profit of 7 million euros.
($1 = 0.8744 euros)
(Reporting by Leo Marchandon in Gdansk, editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)
