The Asia-Pacific region is earmarked for significant growth—2012 will see many of the world’s largest satellite companies, including GlobeCast, Inmarsat Global, Intelsat, MEASAT Satellite Systems, Newtec and Thaicom amongst others, assembling at CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia, Asia’s largest ICT and media communications event. As the Asian satellite market continues to grow, these industry players are using the event as a strategic platform to address the critical issues surrounding Asia’s marketplace, while accentuating their presence in the region.

The Asia-Pacific region is earmarked for significant growth—2012 will see many of the world’s largest satellite companies, including GlobeCast, Inmarsat Global, Intelsat, MEASAT Satellite Systems, Newtec and Thaicom amongst others, assembling at CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia, Asia’s largest ICT and media communications event. As the Asian satellite market continues to grow, these industry players are using the event as a strategic platform to address the critical issues surrounding Asia’s marketplace, while accentuating their presence in the region.

The Growing Asian Satellite Industry
Technological developments have transformed the satellite industry from what was previously confined to serving defence and communication needs, to now possessing the ability to deliver home entertainment in the form of digital broadcasting. It has evolved from just providing bandwidth and enabling content delivery to now include data and video delivery solutions that encompass Internet, VoIP, and mobile communications.

According to many Asian satellite providers, the Asian satellite industry will continue to experience future growth opportunities. With almost 3.8 billion people, Asia accounts for more than 60 percent of the world’s population. This, combined with strong growth in subscription numbers to Direct-To-Home/Direct Broadcast Satellite (DTH/DBS) services and advanced services such as HDTV and 3DTV, are fuelling the demand for satellite services in this region of the world.

Furthermore, the huge popularity of television as an economical form of entertainment has helped payTV operators maintain revenue streams and offers promising prospects for satellite players. In fact, with 10,000 channels and 365 million subscribers, Asia’s payTV industry is booming and looks positive for the future—according to Media Partners Asia, a Hong Kong-based research consultancy, Asian payTV subscriptions will rise to 570 million by 2012, which will still only be 62 percent of homes with TVs.

Interestingly, China is Asia’s biggest potential market for satellite services and equipment. Its population of 104 million and an economy that is one of the fastest growing in the world pushes it ahead of other countries as far as service acquisition is concerned.

Mr. Drew Brandy, Vice President, Industry, at Inmarsat Global, said, “Asia-Pacific is a very important market for us, particularly as it looks set to experience further growth in satellite. As such, CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia are a key event in our calendar. It explores the future of satellite while providing fantastic networking opportunities and enabling us to showcase our latest innovations.”

While rapidly urbanizing cities represent a large proportion of the emerging markets in Asia, connecting rural communities that are beyond the reach of telecommunications infrastructures are becoming equally important for growth. Consumer broadband satellite growth is being boosted by continued rural broadband rollouts and the demand for Internet services in Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) businesses.

Within the government sector, satellite’s critical role in enabling safe and effective communications in disaster recovery, military operations and offshore setups also continue to be growth areas for the Asia-Pacific region. Accounting for two thirds of the overall number of spacecrafts launched, this sector will continue to remain a driver for satellite.

Providing The Right Platform
CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia are the only truly international shows in Asia where business professionals in the satellite industry can meet to discuss and explore the evolving marketplace. In fact, the 2012 events already have the support and endorsement from more than 20 leading trade associations, including Asia-Pacific Satellite Communications Council (APSCC), Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT) and the Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation (SiTF).

Satellite communications provider Newtec has been involved with CommunicAsia for many years. Mr. Serge Van Herck, CEO of Newtec, says the event has played a major role in the company’s expansion in Asia. “CommunicAsia represents a good investment for us each year. All of the key industry players attend the conference and each year the ROI proves it to be an extremely worthwhile venture, both for making deals with new and existing customers, and raising the company profile.

“This year we will be launching a series of products into the Asian market, including the world’s fastest transmission technology. What started out as a simple test of a number of Newtec’s recently released and upcoming technologies ended up in a quite exceptional report. During the actual test, an Intelsat 72 MHz Ku-band transponder was saturated using Newtec’s latest modem technology and a mere 4.5m antenna. The result was a staggering 372 Mbps. Amazingly that did not include the use of the upcoming modulation and coding DVB-S2 extensions that Newtec’s 200-head engineering team is working on. We are looking forward to showing these at CommunicAsia.”

By bridging the wide spectrum of satellite technologies and applications to present operators with new and innovative ways to deliver data, video and voice content, CommunicAsia2012, together with BroadcastAsia2012, is well placed to play a pivotal role in accelerating the growth of Asia’s satellite industry.

For show updates on CommunicAsia2012 and BroadcastAsia2012, please visit the following channels:

Official CommunicAsia2012, BroadcastAsia2012 and EnterpriseIT2012 websites—see links below
Twitter: @CommunicAsia and @BroadcastAsia
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CommunicAsia and http://www.facebook.com/pages/BroadcastAsia/163768382664
LinkedIn: CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia

Shows at a glance

CommunicAsia2012/EnterpriseIT2012
Date: June 19-22, 2012
Venue: Basement 2, Levels 1, 3, 4 and 5
Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
Opening Hours
June 19-21: 10:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
June 22: 10:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Admission: Business and trade professionals only
Registration: http://www.communicasia.com

BroadcastAsia2012
Date: June 19-22, 2012
Venue: Levels 3 and 4, Suntec, Singapore
Opening Hours
June 19-21: 10:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
June 22: 10:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Admission: Business and trade professionals only
Registration: http://www.broadcast-asia.com