SINGAPORE — Video and broadband applications are leading business growth for satellite-enabled services throughout Southeast Asia, said regional directors and general managers of some of the leading satellite companies in the Asia-Pacific region.

Strategic penetration of vertical markets and offering managed solutions are the business practices industry executives are implementing in order to garner a market share and increased revenues from Asian customers.

“Voice over IP, Internet connectivity and mobile trunking are some of the applications most in demand within this region,” Ken Loke, director of sales, enterprise solutions for SES Americom, said during CommunicAsia conference and exhibition June 14-17.

“We are also seeing a strong increase among VSAT applications as well,” said Orlando Skelton, vice president of sales and marketing for SES’ enterprise solutions. “Our company’s virtual network services allow service providers to operate their own VSAT network without the cost of buying the VSAT hub infrastructure.”

Such solutions are gaining momentum throughout Malaysia, Indonesia, China, India, Thailand and parts of China, officials said.

Thailand Takes Center Stage

One country that all eyes soon will be focusing on more closely is Thailand, triggered by the scheduled July 8 launch of Shin Satellite‘s IPStar satellite by Ariansespace from Kourou, French Guiana.

“This has been a long time coming, but we are very excited to see our nine years of hard work come to head,” said Dumrong Kasemset, executive chairman of Shin Satellite. “IPStar will provide broadband internet bandwidth for consumers, corporate customers and telecom providers throughout the Southeast Asian region. Even though it has been nine years for IPStar and it has lasted longer than we expected, we have followed closely what the customer wants and will be better able to serve those customer needs.”

But broadband is not the only significant service fueling the growth of the satellite business in the Asian region, as broadcasting and a variety of platforms are gaining momentum.

“DTH operators, broadcasters, and corporate users are becoming an increasingly stronger business for us especially in the Philippines, Indonesia and India,” said Paul Brown- Kenyon, chief operating officer of Measat. “We are delivering programming to two-thirds of the region’s viewers and what I believe you will see in the future is a successful business within the Asia-Pacific region from bundling video and data services.”

Even with such excitement surrounding business opportunities within the various markets and countries of the Asia-Pacific region, cautious optimism is shared among all doing business here. As one executive put it, the region is “warm” but not “hot” today. Opportunity and a solid venue for revenue growth is spread out throughout the region but all agreed that only smart, well-calculated business initiatives will prevail in the short and long term.

—Nick Mitsis