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For your interest, here are a few statistics and figures about the
maritime VSAT market.
You have our permission to quote these figures providing that you label any information
you
use
as
© and reference is made at each use to this www site
(www.comsys.co.uk). All figures are to December 2007:
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There are a number of segments within the maritime niche which have been
very well targeted and are now effectively saturated. These include cruise
lines, with MTN dominating; oil & gas supply (Vizada and the O&G specialists
including CapRock, RigNet, Schlumberger and others); and, ferries (Vizada).
These sub-segments are small in volume – less than 1,000 ships in total –
but very high in value. The related market in the oil and gas business has
not previously been broken out as maritime, but is in the COMSYS Maritime
VSAT Report. This includes supply vessels, drill ships, seismic vessels
and dive support services. CapRock, Stratos and Schlumberger all have
sizeable customer bases in this area.
Recent changes in
the demand for broadband at sea however, has increased the number of
operators deploying stabilised antenna systems
from a handful of very specialised companies to more than 90 service
providers across the world all interested or providing some form of VSAT
service to the maritime industry. The past four years have seen a
major interest in penetrating the next levels of the market which comprises
of several sub-segments that are both regional and international in scope.
There has been a fundamental change in the market in the form of the wider
commercial segment now beginning to see broadband at sea as an essential
requirement.
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All
stabilised antenna VSAT services have shown strong long term revenue growth
at rates of between 15-20 per cent per year over the past five years.
Underlying this the customer base has broadened quite considerably and
neither average prices nor margins are as high as they were in the late
1990s and early 2000s. Of the top 12 revenue earners in this segment, six
have businesses primarily focused on the oil & gas industry. However, with
the increasing saturation of this segment, many of the major players have
progressively moved towards the broader maritime industry in their search
for growth in verticals they know and have some expertise in.
Despite the
reduction in average pricing, revenues from stabilised VSAT services (which
include bundled hardware) grew to more than $600 million in 2007 and the
number of vessels in service increased to more than 5,000.
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The
COMSYS Maritime VSAT Report analyses the total available maritime market
based on primary research, publicly available data, specific data points
from industry contacts and specifically commissioned research by maritime
industry consultants. The report shows that there are almost 150,000
vessels of all types and that over 20 per cent of these are potential
customers for VSAT. The breakdown of these vessels by segment can be
seen in the pie chart opposite. For many years, communications at sea
has been expensive and generally considered a luxury. Use of service
has, as a consequence, been carefully monitored and controlled, but today
flat-rate broadband connectivity is becoming a necessity in order to recruit
and retain crew. This has quickly strengthened the
case for VSAT as an alternative to the established maritime satellite
services that have dominated to date.
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