Shares in Inmarsat Plc (LON:ISAT) were moon-bound on Thursday morning as the satellite services provider reported an increase in third quarter revenues.
Market conditions remain tough, the company said, but it managed to increase group revenues by 5% in the third quarter to US$341.9mln from US323.1mln the year before, despite a slide in turnover at its biggest division, Maritime.
Maritime’s revenue was off 4.9% from a year earlier at US$142.8mln, but the decline was offset by a 9.8% increase in revenue from government agencies.
The other star performer was the Aviation division, where revenue rose 10.1% year-on-year to US$35.9mln.
Despite the improvement in the top line, profit before tax fell to US$52.5mln from US$84.2mln in the same period of 2015.
“In Maritime, whilst headline revenues were down 5% against a strong Q3 last year, we continued to see good growth in VSAT revenues (Fleet Xpress and XpressLink) with installations of Fleet Xpress now starting to increase,” said Rupert Pearce, chief executive officer of Inmarsat.
“Aviation delivered another solid quarter of double digit growth. Customer interest in the Inmarsat cabin connectivity offering continued to firm up, with IAG, Air New Zealand and another major European airline all recently confirming that they would be using Inmarsat GX and / or EAN connectivity services,” Pearce added.
“Despite declining government expenditure generally, Government has continued to grow both in the US, driven by GX, and outside the US, where operational tempo has continued to be strong. Enterprise, however, had another tough quarter, with little 'event driven' activity and softer demand, particularly in the Energy and Media markets,” Pearce said.
Revenue guidance for the full year and next has been left unchanged.
Shares were 10.3% at 805p towards the end of the morning trading session.