UAE’s flagship satellite solutions provider Al Yah Satellite Communications (Yahsat) posted a 62 per cent rise in half-year net income to Dh269 million, on the back of higher revenues across its core segments. This also helped the company reiterate revenue, profitability, and cash flow guidance, for the full year.
However, the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange-listed firm reported a marginal drop in revenue by 3 per cent to Dh734 million from the prior year, while core earnings (EBITDA) surged by 25 per cent to Dh566 million.
"On a normalised basis, adjusting for material, one-off items to allow for like-for-like comparison, EBITDA was stable versus the prior year at Dh462 million, while normalised Net income, which reached Dh175 million, also remained stable versus the prior year notwithstanding the material impact of UAE corporate tax which was adopted by Yahsat for the first time this year," the company said in a statement.
"This resilient performance was driven by revenue growth across two segments. Infrastructure, the Group’s largest segment providing communications capacity to the UAE Government by means of an index-linked long-term contract, .. and Managed Solutions, the Group’s second largest segment by revenue, providing complete value-added satellite communications solutions primarily to the UAE Government and related entities."
Ali Al Hashemi, Group Chief Executive Officer of Yahsat, commented: “Yahsat has achieved another set of resilient results, demonstrating solid growth in our core government business, offsetting headwinds in our mobile satellite services segment.
“We continue to progress toward finalising the full contract for the new $5.1 billion Capacity and Managed Services Mandate with the UAE Government and have signed, during the last quarter, the full procurement contract with Airbus for two new satellites, Al Yah 4 and Al Yah 5.
“Finally, we are looking forward to completing the merger with Bayanat in the second half of the year and are finalising plans for the successful integration of both companies. This merger will position the new combined entity – Space42 – as an AI-powered space technology champion in the MENA region with global reach. For the first time in our industry, we will combine advanced satcom solutions and geospatial analytics, operating communication and Earth Observation satellites across multiple orbits.”
