Author Topic: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016  (Read 17057 times)

Offline Lar

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Re: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016
« Reply #40 on: 09/13/2017 06:03 pm »
Note: Is a discussion about building thousands of sats per year OT in a "Recession in global satellite industry' thread?

A giant detailed discussion probably belongs elsewhere but as a refutation to the thesis that there is a recession on, it's on topic in my view, and easily.
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Offline savuporo

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Re: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016
« Reply #41 on: 09/13/2017 06:11 pm »
Note: Is a discussion about building thousands of sats per year OT in a "Recession in global satellite industry' thread?

A giant detailed discussion probably belongs elsewhere but as a refutation to the thesis that there is a recession on, it's on topic in my view, and easily.

The number of orders are down, people are being laid off, and revenues reported by the industry last year were a tiny notch above inflation rate, significantly below historical growth.
So until these supposed newly manufactured constellations start making a dent in the overall reported revenues, it's tough to call it as anything but a recession, or a plateau at least.
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Offline AncientU

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Re: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016
« Reply #42 on: 09/13/2017 06:30 pm »
Note: Is a discussion about building thousands of sats per year OT in a "Recession in global satellite industry' thread?

A giant detailed discussion probably belongs elsewhere but as a refutation to the thesis that there is a recession on, it's on topic in my view, and easily.

The number of orders are down, people are being laid off, and revenues reported by the industry last year were a tiny notch above inflation rate, significantly below historical growth.
So until these supposed newly manufactured constellations start making a dent in the overall reported revenues, it's tough to call it as anything but a recession, or a plateau at least.

Could be that traditional GEO market investment is holding back to see where the new value resides.  What looks like a recession could be a restructuring... think about what is happening in automobiles with the surge in electric vehicle investment, model lines, nations declaring end to ICE sales, etc. -- traditional sales are slowing, while new electric line sales are rising exponentially, but we haven't seen the cross-over yet.
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Offline meberbs

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Re: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016
« Reply #43 on: 09/13/2017 06:31 pm »
Note: Is a discussion about building thousands of sats per year OT in a "Recession in global satellite industry' thread?

A giant detailed discussion probably belongs elsewhere but as a refutation to the thesis that there is a recession on, it's on topic in my view, and easily.

The number of orders are down, people are being laid off, and revenues reported by the industry last year were a tiny notch above inflation rate, significantly below historical growth.
So until these supposed newly manufactured constellations start making a dent in the overall reported revenues, it's tough to call it as anything but a recession, or a plateau at least.
When one company has layoffs, and another is building a new factory, this you can't look at just the one company and make conclusions about the whole industry. There are different metrics to track, but if you want to discuss job numbers, you have to mention the hiring being done in addition to the layoffs. Revenue growth being above inflation does not make sense to call recession. Plateau makes some sense in this case, but the context should be considered, and if you count the construction for the new constellations, I am not sure how you could conclude that "orders are down." See above statement from satellite manufacturers on using GEO comsat orders as a KPI.


Offline gongora

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Re: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016
« Reply #44 on: 09/13/2017 06:34 pm »
It's a recession in numbers of GEO satellites ordered, but there are interesting trends.  Condosats (two payloads for different operators on the same satellite) are becoming fairly common as an alternative to the two operators launching separate satellites.  SES said recently that the newly ordered O3b satellites could allow them to not replace two GEO sats.  Maybe all of the satellite manufacturers need to shift their product mixes to stay healthy.  Airbus is participating in Oneweb.  Thales is well established in non-GEO satellites with Iridium NEXT, the current O3b constellation, the proposed LeoSat constellation, etc.  Boeing designed a new variant of the 702 bus to get the new O3b order.  There are lots of things in between cubesats and big GEO satellites.

Offline savuporo

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Re: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016
« Reply #45 on: 09/15/2017 10:59 pm »
Okay folks, fess up, which one of you is Brian Berger of SN ?

http://spacenews.com/are-geo-satellite-orders-still-a-good-measure-of-industry-health/
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Offline AncientU

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Re: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016
« Reply #46 on: 09/16/2017 01:06 am »
Okay folks, fess up, which one of you is Brian Berger of SN ?

http://spacenews.com/are-geo-satellite-orders-still-a-good-measure-of-industry-health/

Funny that. 

If the article is to believed -- we saw it on the internet, so it must be true -- the industry is in transition in two ways:
1. Movement toward broadband/LEO/NGSO constellations (which we've thrashed fairly thoroughly), and
2. Movement toward smaller numbers of Battlestar Galactica GEO sats (which we've missed*).

The latter makes lots of sense with the limited number of GEO slots available.  Maybe Condo-sats will become Condo-complex-sats and basic infrastructure will grow at each GEO node to accommodate incremental additions of capability without increasing individual satellite numbers.

* Just noticed gongora's comment a couple upstream... so we didn't miss #2 either, just late to the game. 
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« Last Edit: 09/16/2017 01:21 am by AncientU »
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Offline Katana

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Re: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016
« Reply #47 on: 09/16/2017 04:41 am »
Note: Is a discussion about building thousands of sats per year OT in a "Recession in global satellite industry' thread?

A giant detailed discussion probably belongs elsewhere but as a refutation to the thesis that there is a recession on, it's on topic in my view, and easily.

The number of orders are down, people are being laid off, and revenues reported by the industry last year were a tiny notch above inflation rate, significantly below historical growth.
So until these supposed newly manufactured constellations start making a dent in the overall reported revenues, it's tough to call it as anything but a recession, or a plateau at least.
When one company has layoffs, and another is building a new factory, this you can't look at just the one company and make conclusions about the whole industry. There are different metrics to track, but if you want to discuss job numbers, you have to mention the hiring being done in addition to the layoffs. Revenue growth being above inflation does not make sense to call recession. Plateau makes some sense in this case, but the context should be considered, and if you count the construction for the new constellations, I am not sure how you could conclude that "orders are down." See above statement from satellite manufacturers on using GEO comsat orders as a KPI.

Growth rate of satellite manufacturing industry is -13%, below zero.
Growth rate of satellite service industry is 0.2%, below inflation.
Growth rate of the whole satellite industry is 2%, but mostly are contributed from ground equipments.
« Last Edit: 09/18/2017 08:08 am by Katana »

Offline AncientU

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Re: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016
« Reply #48 on: 09/16/2017 11:40 am »
...
Growth rate of satellite manufacturing industry is -13%, below zero.
Growth rate of satellite service industry is -0.2%, below inflation.
Growth rate of the whole satellite industry is 2%, but mostly are contributed from ground equipments.

This -13% figure is the premise of entire thread.  Satellite manufacturing revenues* were impacted by the availability of launchers due to Proton's year off and SpaceX losing AMOS plus four months of launches.  Communications sats accounted for 22% of revenue vs 42% the previous year -- a big drop that more than accounts for the -13% overall.  This could easily be the result of losing a handful of big sat launches.

*Per the report (page17):
Quote
Satellite manufacturing revenues are recorded in the year of satellite launch.

I believe that this thread has well-covered the transition being experienced by the satellite manufacturing (plus other segments) industry.  It is probably as healthy now as it ever has been, maybe better, but going to look quite different a few years down the road.
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Offline AncientU

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Re: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016
« Reply #49 on: 09/17/2017 01:56 pm »
One final reference and quote:
Quote
Constellations of Internet Satellites Will Beam Broadband Everywhere
...
"I've been in this industry well over 30 years, and there's been more activity in the last five or so years, than probably in the previous 20," Sanders says. "It's incredible."
-- Stewart Sanders, executive vice president of technology for SES Networks

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/constellations-internet-satellites-will-beam-broadband-everywhere.htm
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Offline Katana

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Re: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016
« Reply #50 on: 09/18/2017 08:21 am »
...
Growth rate of satellite manufacturing industry is -13%, below zero.
Growth rate of satellite service industry is 0.2%, below inflation.
Growth rate of the whole satellite industry is 2%, but mostly are contributed from ground equipments.

This -13% figure is the premise of entire thread.  Satellite manufacturing revenues* were impacted by the availability of launchers due to Proton's year off and SpaceX losing AMOS plus four months of launches.  Communications sats accounted for 22% of revenue vs 42% the previous year -- a big drop that more than accounts for the -13% overall.  This could easily be the result of losing a handful of big sat launches.

*Per the report (page17):
Quote
Satellite manufacturing revenues are recorded in the year of satellite launch.

I believe that this thread has well-covered the transition being experienced by the satellite manufacturing (plus other segments) industry.  It is probably as healthy now as it ever has been, maybe better, but going to look quite different a few years down the road.

0.2% growth of service revenue makes more sense: service revenue comes from averaged behavior of end customers, instead of being affected by random incidents or choices. Also notice 0.2% is significantly lower than 7% growth of ground equipment revenue, mostly from GPS modules of mobile phones.

This implies far less growth compared to consumer electronics industry (which is the "home" of venture capitals).
« Last Edit: 09/18/2017 08:22 am by Katana »

Offline oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016
« Reply #51 on: 09/18/2017 03:27 pm »
Revenues from comm sat service providers slow growth is due to the fact that the sats recently deployed have a very large increase per sat in data throughput (HTS). This has caused data prices to decrease. Which if the industry's revenue is still increasing (even just .2%) with prices decreasing means the demand for data has increased a lot. It is this last item that tells the tale about the health of the industry. What is the demand? Is it increasing or decreasing. The answer is that it is increasing rapidly, but that the demand is also for much lower prices on the $/bit. The industry is showing a high elasticity for demand vs the prices for the data. Competition in the form of the prices of $/bit provided by NGSO and LEO constellations as well as the GEO-HTS is transforming the comm sat manufacturers customer base demands. They want the manufacturers to deliver sats that provide capabilities that will have lower $/bit. Either lower the unit costs or increase the unit's bandwidth for same cost.

Offline Katana

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Re: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016
« Reply #52 on: 09/20/2017 02:31 am »
Revenues from comm sat service providers slow growth is due to the fact that the sats recently deployed have a very large increase per sat in data throughput (HTS). This has caused data prices to decrease. Which if the industry's revenue is still increasing (even just .2%) with prices decreasing means the demand for data has increased a lot. It is this last item that tells the tale about the health of the industry. What is the demand? Is it increasing or decreasing. The answer is that it is increasing rapidly, but that the demand is also for much lower prices on the $/bit. The industry is showing a high elasticity for demand vs the prices for the data. Competition in the form of the prices of $/bit provided by NGSO and LEO constellations as well as the GEO-HTS is transforming the comm sat manufacturers customer base demands. They want the manufacturers to deliver sats that provide capabilities that will have lower $/bit. Either lower the unit costs or increase the unit's bandwidth for same cost.
The reverse Moore law of price (for data or electronics hardware).

Offline Rondaz

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Re: Recession of global satellite industry in 2016
« Reply #53 on: 10/01/2019 01:17 pm »
As @_LeoSat's anchor investors @Hispasat and SkyPerfect JSAT are not interested to increase their investment the company which has only until January 2021 to bring its @ITU frequency allocations into use seeks to cut costs to $3bn by shrinking satellites.

https://twitter.com/Megaconstellati/status/1178994971229265922

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