VIA SATELLITE: How would you assess the financial situation of the company?
AKIYAMA: We have been generating strong operating cash flows and hold ample cash and cash equivalents. Our balance of debt has remained stable under these circumstances.
VIA SATELLITE: Are you seeing any impact in terms of your abilities to generate revenues due to the global economic crisis?
AKIYAMA: Unlike advertising-based business models, our satellite broadcasting business model is based on contracted subscription fees. As for the satellite communications business, we have long-term contracts with governmental/private entities, therefore, we have yet to see any drastic decreases in sales and subscribers at this stage. However, we will need to keep a close eye on economic developments going forward.
VIA SATELLITE: Do you expect the financial crisis to have an impact on the number of operators in the region?
AKIYAMA: The Asian market has not been hit as hard as the U.S., European and Japanese markets. In fact, we are seeing an increase in transponder demand for the C-/Ku-bands in the Asian market.
VIA SATELLITE: What is your growth strategy for JSAT Mobile and your expectations for the mobile market?
AKIYAMA: In February, JSAT Mobile introduced the new Inmarsat BGAN service and FleetBroadband Service to the Japanese market. Since the Inmarsat service is effectively mandatory for ocean-going shipping, we don’t expect to see any rapid decrease in demand.
VIA SATELLITE: Satellite pay-TV penetration in Japan is still relatively low. Do you see there being a huge growth opportunity for the company in terms of pay-TV?
AKIYAMA: Penetration of satellite pay-TV is still at just 8 percent of all households in Japan, therefore, we still have a lot of room to expand our subscriber base for Sky PerfecTV and Sky PerfecTV Hikari (broadcasting service over fiber to the home) services. We began offering Sky PerfecTV HD broadcasting services in October. Plans call for expanding this service to more than 70 channels by 2009 and 100 channels in 2012 in order to meet consumer demand. Thanks to increased penetration of 3-wave digital TV sets (terrestrial/BS/CS), Sky PerfecTV is seeing rapid subscriber growth. Also, Sky PerfecTV HIKARI is attracting more subscribers by cooperating with NTT through the use of its optical fiber network.
VIA SATELLITE: Is HD a major growth opportunity for Sky Perfect JSAT?
AKIYAMA: We believe that HDTV broadcasting represents a major growth opportunity in Japan. We are offering and expanding Sky PerfecTV HD broadcasting services to seize on this opportunity.
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