“Part of the growth is however due to exchange rate fluctuations that had a positive contribution to growth in 2011 while having a slightly negative impact in 2010. For 2012 we expect growth to stay at the levels of 2012 or even to slightly accelerate driven by newly launched satellites including high-throughput systems,” says Richard Roithner, Director of Satcom, Euroconsult.

   NSR, which looks at the market’s revenues from a wholesale capacity leasing perspective, predicts revenues will close in on the $12 billion barrier in 2012. “We estimate that station-kept capacity leasing for the FSS sector generated $10.77 billion in 2011 and is expected to grow to $11.4 billion in 2012. This is for C, Ku, widebeam Ka-band (non-frequency reuse Ka-band) as well as capacity used on High Throughput Satellites (HTS). The HTS market is still relatively small but will grow substantially in the coming years,” says Patrick French, senior analyst, NSR.

   In terms of what the market will be worth in the next few years, French adds, “For FSS operator capacity leasing, NSR believes the market will be worth $13.4 billion in 2015. We are seeing a 4-6 percent growth on average in global revenues per year through 2015. This is coming from increases in capacity demand, such as seen in strong markets like Latin America, as well as a gradual increasing of capacity pricing on a global basis.”

   A lot of the growth in the overall satellite market is coming from the DTH market with satellite pay-TV platforms continuing to hold their own, despite a more multi-fragmented media landscape than ever before. Jacob Gullish, expects the growth to continue here and Futron predicts that the overall broadcast market will be worth around $9 billion in 2013. “The satellite industry greatly benefits from the launches of new DTH platforms, which regularly require anywhere from two to eight transponders support a viable bouquet of channels that would attract subscribers. Several new pay-TV platforms began operation in 2011 and late 2010, adding to satellite operators coffers during 2011. Asia Pacific added several new platforms including Taiwan’s Dish HD, Dream Satellite TV in South Korea, G Sat in the Philippines. And what India lacks in ARPU numbers they make up for in volume,” he says. “The number of commercial DTH operators in India grew to six by 2011, collectively reaching more than 44 million subscribers or 12 million more than at the end of 2010 (a 35 percent increase). Sub-Saharan Africa is beginning to launch new bouquets including Angola’s ZAP TV and Kenya’s Zuku TV, and a new platform for The Democratic Republic of Congo is reportedly in the works.

   On the capacity side of the issue, French adds, “Our estimates for capacity of the DTH market in 2011, is that it was worth about $2.45 billion, and for 2012, we expect that to go up to $2.63 billion.”

   Despite the strong overall growth in the DTH market, parts of the broadcast market could prove tougher. “The contribution market is important but transponder demand is relatively flat as capacity usage becomes more efficient. Yet, for the overall media markets, NSR continues to see solid growth around the world with only a few notable exceptions such as the North American C-band distribution market. Generally speaking, DTH and video distribution (FTA, cable head-ends) are still doing quite well being driven primarily by the carriage of new SD and HD channels,” says French.

   The satellite broadband market, still in its nascent stage, could also be one to watch, and one in which Gullish says is seeing very strong growth rates, even though this is off a very small base. “There are a growing number of consumer subscribers, but overall, outside of the United States the numbers are relatively small. In North America the figure has broken the 1 million-subscriber number, the 2 million mark will be a number of years off. In Europe and Australia, the numbers are in the several hundred thousand – so there is demand but it relatively small compared to other consumer markets like DTH,” says Gullish. “Ipstar has several hundred thousands of customers, but for the most part, this is not consumer broadband. Outside of Australia, most customers are tied to government initiatives and backhaul services.”