Posted at Advanced TV by journalist Chris Forrester, London-based specialty satellite operator Avanti Communications issued their quarterly trading update on November 30th.

Journalist Chris Forrester.

The update reported that revenue for its Q3 (to September 30th) was just $10.8 million (9.5 million euros). This is marginally ahead of the same quarterly period last year when revenues were $9.7 million.

However, the regular reports of quarterly losses are also confirmed by comparing the same quarter-year period in 2018 and this latest trading quarter. A year ago, the company reported that their cash balance at the end of the quarter was $90 million, and that their contracted backlog stood at $95.2 million.

This latest trading update shows that Avanti’s EBITDA loss was $10.6 million and that its cash balance was just $13.3 million. The company's backlog has improved to $164.6 million and helped is by a 7-year capacity agreement with an unnamed customer worth $84 million (or $12 million/yr), or some $3 million per quarter-year. Good though that news is, the deal does not kick in for another year (“to commence in Q3 ending December 31st 2019”). Another deal was with ViaSat for capacity on Hylas-4 worth $10 million, over two years.

The cash-burn means that Avanti has had to extend its drawdown facility already in place for $132.5 million (and on which it has already drawn down $118 million) to $152.5 million, which means the company has a further $34.5 million available to help fund their progress.