Antrix lines up international projects

Aims to end fiscal with Rs 400 crore

Antrix Corporation Limited, the marketing arm of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), aims to end the financial year with revenues of Rs 400 crore, a key official of the company told Business Standard.

Antrix will sell ISRO's remote sensing data in more geographies, including China, and expects robust growth in its telecommunications business, contributing to increased revenues, the official said.

In 2003-04, the telecommunications business overtook remote sensing as the major contributor to revenues of Rs 294 crore, and the trend will continue, K R Sridhar Murthy, executive director of Antrix said. "With some luck we may even go beyond Rs 400 crore for 2004-05."

Sales during 2002-03 were Rs 99 crore, with profit after taxes of Rs 18.5 crore. Antrix's annual report says, though sales for 2003-04 represented an almost 200 per cent jump over 2002-03, profits were hurt by "reduced margins on projects for the department of defence."

But, the firm continues to increase business with private customers, both in remote sensing, through its international marketing deal with US-based Space Imaging Inc. and in telecommunications services.

Remote sensing contributed between 10 per cent and 12 per cent of revenues last year. "In 2004, we have widened our market. With the launch of the IRS P6 (Resourcesat 1), we have struck a deal to provide downlink access to the Chinese, and in more areas in Latin America. An existing Chinese earth station will now directly receive data from our remote sensing satellites."

ISRO's remote sensing satellites supply data to an international network of nearly 20 ground stations, including 5 in the US, 2 in Europe and 3 in Russia.

In 2003-04, leasing out C and Ku band transponders on INSAT satellites was nearly a Rs 100 crore business, Murthy said. "That is excluding Rs 50 crore from leasing out capacity to Intelsat."

Antrix has lead ISRO's deals with private television channels and direct to home service providers. Ku band customers with VSAT requirements include HECL, Comsat Max, Essel Shyam and Tatanet Services.

Earlier this month, Antrix agreed to form a 50:50 joint venture with Malaysia's MEASAT Global Bhd to pool agreed capacity from neighbouring satellites of ISRO and MEASAT in the strategically located orbital slots of 93.5 degree East longitude and 91.5 degree East longitude.

The JV will then provide C-band satellite services to over 70 percent of the world's population, and direct-to-home quality Ku-band satellite services to over 160 million TV households across South Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Indo-China. The JV will also explore feasibility of the development of a worldclass customer teleport in India, an ISRO release said.

MEASAT has also signed a Letter of Intent with Antrix to procure a new satellite, MEASAT-4 from ISRO, which will provide additional Ku-band capacity for the MEASAT fleet.

The satellite is expected to be procured for a scheduled launch in the first quarter of 2007.

This represents one of two significant developments for ISRO and Antrix that happened this year. Antrix will market "full systems built by ISRO", for which the company is exploring various markets, Murthy said. One such deal is to supply a solar sail and boom to Japan's Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. ISRO is holding talks with a major US-based firm on building small and medium-sized satellites together, he said.

Second, ISRO is already thinking of getting the domestic private partners to go beyond maintenance, servicing and testing, or supplying satellite parts.

"It is possible that one large private company can take the lead in assembling the satellite for us. We can train that company's manpower to do this.

If this takes shape along with getting contracts to supply satellites, we can boost satellite making to the batch production mode."