The maritime satcom market (both MSS and VSAT) will grow to more than 500,000 terminals in 2027, compared to 337,300 terminals in 2017, with revenues for satellite operators and maritime service providers to enjoy a compound annual growth rate of more than 5 per cent, according to the latest report from Euroconsult.

The Prospects for Maritime Satellite Communications report predicts that total revenue for satellite operators should grow from $953 million in 2017 to $1.6 billion by 2027, a 10-year CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 5.2 per cent, while revenue for maritime service providers will grow from $1.8 billion in 2017 to $2.9 billion in 2027, a 10-year CAGR of 5.3 per cent.

According to Euroconsult, the total number of terminals used by the maritime satellite communications market experienced limited growth in 2017, with an increase of 0.7 per cent year-over-year. However the VSAT market scored 18.8 per cent growth in 2017, exceeding 23,000 terminals. Meanwhile the number of MSS terminals decreased by 0.4 per cent, reaching 314,300 terminals.

VSAT technology is starting to be taken up by the medium and small vessels market, the report says, and this is gaining traction as operators are increasingly willing to migrate from MSS to VSAT solutions.

This migration will be further fuelled by future booming bandwidth requirements, Euroconsult says, driven not only by bandwidth-hungry passengers and crew but also by the overall development of smart applications across the industry.

“Increased demand from passengers (especially in the cruise and leisure segment), regulatory incentives on safety communications, crew and passenger appetite for enriched content, and newly developed concepts related to smart shipping are some of the major factors pushing maritime operators to install the latest generation of satellite systems on their vessels,” said Florent Rizzo, consultant at Euroconsult and editor of the report.

“Autonomous shipping, performance monitoring, fleet management and cyber-secure applications, brought by an increasing number of IoT-connected and sensing devices, will drive capacity demand in the next decade.”

“For the maritime market, if all satellites are launched as planned, the total available HTS satellite capacity over oceanic regions will grow almost ten-fold from 2017-2020, to cater to the ever-growing demand. The hardware, such as receiving antennas and modems, is also evolving rapidly; smaller, lighter and more efficient antenna systems are gaining traction as the industry continues to evolve.”

Consolidation in the VSAT market has seen the five largest companies grow to control 90 per cent of the market, the report says, with competitive pressure continuing to increase as the development of new VSAT terminal installation facilities and the democratisation of the technology lowers entry barriers for regional service providers, especially in the Asian and Middle East markets.

Nevertheless, further integration and consolidation in the value chain is predicted by the report in the coming years.