SES taps PLDT to springboard satellite expansion in AsPac

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida – Luxembourg-based SES is eyeing the Philippines as one of its key market in the Asia Pacific region, tapping telecom giant Philippine Long Distance Co. (PLDT) as a major client.

In a press briefing here last week for the launch of one of the most powerful satellites ever-launched, SES-12, John Paul Hemingway, SES Networks chief executive officer, said they would want to be part of the ongoing expansive rollout of PLDT’s vast network.

Hemingway did not elaborate on the PLDT deal, but he hinted that SES may be part of the leading telecom company’s aggressive effort to provide seamless mobile network services throughout the country.

“Philippines is an interesting market. You’ve got the very predominant 4G rollout. PLDT is rolling out a very large fiber network (4G). You may think about satellite as a way to complete that infrastructure,” he said.

Aside from PLDT, SES currently provides satellite services to Mediascape/Cignal TV Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of MediaQuest Holdings Inc. under the PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund. Cignal is a subscription-based Directto-Home (DTH) satellite tel- evision service provider in the Philippines.

Specifically, SES supplies capacity, enabling MediaScape to offer 32 High Definition (HD) channels and 89 Standard Definition (SD) channels to more than 1.8 million subscribers across the Philippine archipelago through Cignal Digital TV, DTH satellite television service provider.

SES also has existing contracts with Lopez-controlled SkyCable and GSAT, owned by Global Broadcasting and Multimedia Inc. and First United Broadcasting Corp.

SkyCable’s franchise area covers Metro Manila and nearby provinces. It has 700,000 subscribers, SES helps support SkyCable’s expansion to broadcast content to 251 cities and municipalities, including those in remote islands and rural areas.

On the other hand, with the support of SES, GSAT offers 17 HD channels and 86 SD channels to more than half a million subscribers across the Philippine archipelago.

SES said that the Philippines continues to be a fastgrowing TV market, where linear TV continues to be a major source of entertainment.

By 2022, the Philippines is expected to see 2.8 million new TV homes as satellite will play a crucial role in connecting households archipelago-wide, reaching every 5th home in the country.

At the same time, SES said media consumption habits are also evolving. Viewers in the Philippines are consuming more video content with the expectation of better quality content – HDTV as an example is expected to grow to 70 percent by 2022 – and watching this content on their own time, on any device.

With the successful launch of SES-12 into orbit last June 4, which is specifically designed to cater to the expansion of data, mobility, government and video sectors in the AsiaPacific region, SES also hopes to broaden its customer base to include the Philippine government and other sectors such as industrial, aviation, energy and maritime.

“The Philippines is a key market for SES as we seek to break the digital divide and bring access of the best education information to people irrespective of geography,” Hemingway said.

In the aviation sector, SES is banking on the potential enormous growth in the travel and airline industry with the number of air passengers passing through Manila seen to increase to 140 million by 2035 from 42 million last year.

“The Philippines aviation and travel industry will no doubt be a key driver of this growth. Today, the country’s aviation sector continues to grow with both rising passenger numbers and plans underway to transform the country into a regional aviation hub,” he said.

He also noted the additional market that would be created by the expansion of Clark International Airport which is expected to be completed by 2020. Upon completion, the new terminal is designed to accommodate an additional eight million passengers every year.

In the maritime industry, he said they expect a steady roll-out of connected vessels and cruise liners in Asia, with the total number of maritime in-service terminal expected to more than double from 73,000 in 2017 to over 175,000 by 2026.

For the Philippines, where the maritime industry is fast growing and a key economic driver, he said cruise tourism is a strategic tourism product. The country has embarked on a National Cruise Tourism Strategy since 2016 to develop the country as a top cruiseship destination.

“Looking ahead, SES-12 will help accelerate the growth of maritime connectivity in the Philippines and across the region, by providing costeffective, high throughput connectivity to cruise, cargo, and other vessels traversing high-traffic maritime routes across the Indian Ocean,” he said.