Iridium will pay $115,000,000 to acquire the remaining 80% of Satelles, having previously owned 20% through prior investments.
Iridium expects the acquisition of Satelles to be completed by 2024-04-01.
Iridium will pay about $115 million, net of cash remaining in Satelles, to acquire the remaining approximately 80 percent ownership, financed through a tack-on to its term loan.
Iridium anticipates the Iridium STL line of business will generate over $100,000,000 in service revenue per year by 2030, plus additional revenue from equipment and engineering.
Reston, Virginia-based Satelles has been broadcasting timing and location signals since 2016 through a channel Iridium’s satellites in low Earth orbit previously used for paging.
Iridium is spending about $115,000,000 to buy the 80% of Satelles it does not already own, with the deal expected to complete 2024-04-01.
Iridium estimates Satelles service revenue will climb to more than $100,000,000 per year by 2030, in addition to sales from equipment and engineering.
Standardized chips that Iridium plans to enable from 2026 for smartphones to send texts and SOS alerts via its satellites could potentially use Satelles signals for timing synchronization and in-building location services.
Iridium recorded $791,000,000 in revenues for 2023, a 10% increase year-on-year.
Iridium seeks to reach $1,000,000,000 in annual sales before the end of the decade, driven mainly by voice, messaging, and data connectivity services.
On 2024-03-04, Iridium Communications plans to buy out Satelles, which provides a backup for GPS via Iridium’s L-band network.
The integration that Nova Systems will complete on behalf of its client features SKYTRAC’s SDL-350 Iridium Certus broadband satcom system and SKYTRAC’s MTC-100 touchscreen control unit.
The SDL-350 is SKYTRAC’s flagship Iridium Certus broadband system that provides global satellite connectivity with speeds up to 704 Kbps downlink and 352 Kbps uplink and includes 0.004 kg LTE cellular connectivity.
Iridium reported Q4 total revenue of $194.7 million, consisting of $148,000,000 of service revenue and $46,700,000 of revenue related to equipment sales and engineering and support projects.
Iridium’s existing mega-constellation consists of 66 satellites that were initially given life-spans of 12.5 years when launched in 2017 or 2019.
Iridium reported Q4 net income of $38,000,000 for the most recent quarter, compared to a net loss of $800,000 for the same period in 2022.
Iridium is seeking an update to terrestrial network protocols to enable its existing satellites to connect to standard user devices using globally approved L-band spectrum and aims to deploy messaging and SOS services from 2026.
Iridium expects to reach $1,000,000,000 in annual sales before the end of the decade.
Revenues under contract for hosted payloads on Iridium satellites represent less than 2% of Iridium’s sales for the fourth quarter of 2023 and include the aircraft-tracking Aireon service.
Iridium expects its Iridium Next satellites to perform well to at least 2035 following a recent engineering assessment.