TAMPA, Fla. — Government revenue at SES surged more than 21% in the second quarter of 2025 amid accelerating demand from defense customers worldwide, the multi-orbit satellite operator announced July 31.
The Luxembourg-based company reported 153 million euros ($175 million) in government sales, accounting for roughly a third of total revenues recorded for the three months ending June 30.
“We’re seeing an acceleration in government demand, and we’re seeing it on both sides of the Atlantic,” SES CEO Adel Al-Saleh told analysts during a call discussing the company’s final quarter before integrating earnings from recently acquired rival Intelsat.
While the company is “quite confident that a high single-digit growth in the government will continue for the foreseeable future,” Al-Saleh cautioned that the quarter-on-quarter pace seen in Q2 may not be repeated.
“Our government business is a very sizable business,” he added. “It’s going to be hitting close to $1 billion” overall.
SES did not elaborate on the timing or trajectory of that milestone. The publicly listed company reported 547 million euros in government revenue for 2024.
While operating as a privately held company, Intelsat said it generated $386 million from government customers in 2024 — meaning the two companies were already around the $1 billion mark on an annual basis prior to their July 17 merger.
Combined, the companies recorded 3.7 billion euros in pro forma revenues in 2024.
Ongoing media decline
Like other legacy geostationary players Eutelsat and Telesat, SES is leaning more heavily on connectivity services as satellite TV revenue continues to decline.
Revenue from SES’s Media segment fell 13.6% quarter-over-quarter to 192 million euros, adjusted for currency fluctuations.
In contrast, revenue from its broader Networks business — which includes government, fixed data and mobility connectivity — rose 12.5% to 277 million euros for the same period.
Still, the company faces intensifying competition in this segment from SpaceX’s low Earth orbit (LEO) Starlink constellation, which is also targeting government and aviation markets, SES’s largest growth areas.
GEO still matters
According to Al-Saleh, while geostationary orbit (GEO) is losing ground to LEO for latency-sensitive applications, governments are increasingly valuing multi-orbit architectures to strengthen resilience and mission flexibility.
“[O]ver time, that GEO is declining and moving towards MEO and LEO, but I do not see, in the foreseeable future, governments not using GEOs,” he said.
In the government sector, he said connectivity from GEO remains particularly useful for supporting drones and ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) missions.
Al-Saleh pointed to the recently announced GovSat-2 defense satellite, a GEO spacecraft being developed in partnership with Luxembourg, as a sign of continued government commitment to this orbital regime.
“This is the next generation of very robust, military-grade satellite that’s going to be in service for the next 20 years after we launch it, he said, “and the governments foresee the need for that.”
SES now operates around 90 GEO and 30 MEO satellites, following the consolidation of Intelsat’s fleet.
The company is also a key partner in Europe’s planned multi-orbit IRIS² sovereign broadband constellation, designed to strengthen secure government communications. While still facing many political and commercial hurdles, the project would complement SES’ expanding multi-orbit defense portfolio.
SES reported 521 million euros in adjusted EBITDA — or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — for the first six months of 2025, down 0.7% year-on-year.