Investment bankers Merrill Lynch predict the newly expanded SES Global will be making gross annual profits of more than 2.11 billion euros by 2006. Gross revenues will be topping 2.35 billion euros by 2006, with gross margins of almost 90% expected. Merrill Lynch rate the SES stock a “buy”, and “long-term accumulate” with a 12-month price objective of 20 euros.

On November 29, SES had formally unveiled its Broadband Interactive (BBI) product, which uses Ka-band frequencies on Astra 1H satellite, and claimed it was the first commercial Ka-band two-way broadband satellite service available across Europe. Describing the initiative as a “major milestone”, Astra’s BBI system uses the DVB-compliant return channel over satellite (DVB-RCS) broadband standard and will support all standard IP-based needs. The BBI hub provides a standard DVB-S forward path capable of delivering up to 38 Mbit/s of IP data or content to interactive terminals located at client premises.

The Merrill Lynch figures for BBI, clearly based on management expectations, show some healthy growth prospects, from a modest three million euros and five million euros gross revenue for this year and 2002, but rapidly building thereafter to an impressive 100 million euros by 2006.