Good day. Welcome to the Eutelsat third quarter and nine months 2022/2023 revenues conference call and webcast, followed by a business update on OneWeb. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Eva Berneke, Chief Executive Officer. Madam, please go ahead.
Thank you. Welcome to you all for joining us today for Eutelsat's third quarter 2023 revenue presentation. I'm Eva Berneke, the CEO, and I'm joined today by our CFO, Christophe Caudrelier. We'll start out with Christophe presenting third quarter revenues. I will give you a business update on OneWeb and our combination project, Eutelsat OneWeb. Over to you, Christophe.
Thank you, Eva. Good morning to everyone. Let's start by taking a quick look at the recent trading highlights. 2023 operating verticals revenues landed at EUR 272 million, and nine months operating verticals revenues were at the midpoint of our expectation for the full year. The third quarter saw an improving trend in government services on the back of an Airbus take-or-pay deal and ahead of entry into service on incremental capacity in fiscal year 2023/2024. Connectivity applications continue to see sustained positive momentum ahead of the entry into service of KONNECT VHTS and EUTELSAT 10B next fiscal year. With all this, we confirm all standalone full year 2022/2023 and long-term financial objectives. As we announced beginning of May, Eutelsat has joined forces with fellow European companies to form a consortium to bid on the European Commission standard for the Iris satellite constellations.
The partnership will aim to create a state-of-the-art satellite constellation based on a multi-orbit architecture and interoperable with the terrestrial ecosystem to address the growing connectivity needs of European governments, businesses and citizens. Elsewhere, OneWeb's Gen 1 constellation is on track to reach global coverage by the end of this year, supporting a robust commercial ramp-up across key verticals. The extraordinary general meeting to approve the combination is expected to take place in the third quarter of calendar 2023. Let's have a look at Q3 revenues. Total revenues for the third quarter stood at EUR 272 million, down 5.2% on a reported basis. Other revenues, as a reminder, revenues other than those generated from the commercialization of satellite capacity were down EUR 2 million, including a EUR +1 million positive variation in hedging revenues.
Excluding a positive currency effect of EUR 7 million based on a EUR/USD rate of 1.07 versus 1.13 last year, revenues of the five operating verticals were down by 7% on a like-for-like basis. Looking at revenues in more detail. Broadcast, 58% of group total. Recorded revenues of EUR 157 million, down 10.6% versus last year. Data and professional video, 14% of group total, revenues of EUR 38 million down 7.3%. Government services, 11% of group total, revenues of EUR 31 million down 13.4%. Fixed broadband, 7% of revenues stood at EUR 19 million, an organic progression of 7.3%. On mobility, 10% of total, revenues of EUR 27 million, up by 23%.
Other revenues stood at EUR 0.4 million, which included a EUR 2 million negative impact from hedging operations versus a negative effect of EUR 3 million a year earlier. Let's take a look at the Q3 performance by application. First, broadcast. Q3 revenues were down 10.6% to EUR 157 million. This reflected the full impact of non-renewal of the Digiturk contract, lower revenues in Europe, the effect of the sanctions against certain Russian and Iranian channels, which mainly impact the second half of fiscal year 2022/2023. On the commercial front, Eutelsat was selected by certain Latin American customers for broadcast services in Mexico and Brazil, leveraging the unparalleled coverage of the EUTELSAT 65 A, EUTELSAT 117 WA, and EUTELSAT 117 WB satellites over the region.
Now, data on professional video revenues stood at EUR 38 million, down by 7.3% year-on-year. In fixed data, two-thirds of this application, improved volume trends partly offset the negative impact of ongoing competitive pressure. Professional video, one third of revenues, saw a slight deterioration reflecting the phasing of a specific contract as well as seasonality occasional use. On the commercial front, the partnership was signed with POULSAT to help provide schools in North Africa with high-speed internet connectivity thanks to Eutelsat advanced solutions. We expect this application to decline at a mid-single digit pace over the full fiscal year, consistent with previous indications. Government services revenues stood at EUR 31 million, down 13.4% year-on-year.
They reflect the full negative carry-forward effect of recent U.S. Department of Defense renewals, with, in particular, a renewal rate of 65% in fall 2022. This decrease was partially offset by a take-or-pay contract with Airbus, which also expands Eutelsat European customers portfolio, thereby diversifying its geographic exposure. Quarter-on-quarter revenues were up by 3.1%, reflecting the above-mentioned contract, which was booked with retroactive effect at July 1, 2022. The latest renewal campaign with the U.S. Department of Defense, spring 2023, resulted in a slightly improved renewal rate of above 70%. In the fourth quarter, the trend should improve on the back of these tailwinds. Third quarter fixed broadband revenues stood at EUR 19 million, up 7.3% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis.
This reflected the contribution from our four European wholesale agreements with Orange, TIM, and more recently, Hispasat and Swisscom, as well as, to a lesser extent, the growth of the African operations. Quarter-on-quarter revenues were up by 3.5%. Over the full year, fixed broadband should be broadly stable as the comparison basis now better reflects the above-mentioned contracts, mainly in Europe and Africa. Keep in mind that Q4 2022 was also included a positive EUR 2.5 million on which will clearly impact the comparison basis of the upcoming Q4. Growth is expected to re-accelerate in fiscal year 2023, 2024 on the back of the entry into service of KONNECT VHTS. Q3 mobile connectivity revenues stood at EUR 27 million, up 23% year-on-year, reflecting the ongoing positive momentum, notably the strong growth in maritime.
Quarter-on-quarter revenues were down by 4.1%, a mechanical impact which reflected the timing of the commercialization of the third beam on EUTELSAT QUANTUM booked in Q2 with retroactive effect from August 2022. The overall positive dynamic is expected to translate into double-digit growth for the full year, albeit at a slower pace compared to the first nine months rate of 29.2%, as the comparison basis will gradually reflect some of the above-mentioned, as well as other incremental contracts. Turning to backlog and fill rates. The backlog stood at EUR 3.5 billion at the end of March 2023 versus EUR 4 billion a year earlier and EUR 3.7 billion at the end of December 2022, reflecting its natural erosion in the absence of major broadcast renewals this quarter.
The backlog was equivalent to 3.1x 2021-2022 revenues, and broadcast represented 58% of the total versus 63% a year ago. The backlog profile is progressively reflecting the rebalancing of our operations towards connectivity with shorter contracts. Moreover, the backlog does not include management services. We are currently working on a methodology to better reflect these services contribution. The number of operational transponders at 31st March 2023 stood at 1,352, broadly stable year-over-year and compared to end of December 2022, with no entry into service of any new regular capacity or end of stable orbit life of any satellite over the last 12 months. The number of utilized transponders stood at 916, down by 45 units year-over-year and by 39 units compared to end of December.
The latter reflecting notably lower volumes in broadcast and the absence of major broadcast renewals this quarter. Keep in mind that this figure does not include yet the HTS capacity of some of our satellites such as Eutelsat Konnect and EUTELSAT QUANTUM. As a result, the fill rates stood at 67.8% compared to 70.7% a year earlier and 70.2% at the end of December. Let's now turn to the outlook. On the back of all these, we confirm our financial outlook. We expect to generate operating revenues of between EUR 1.135 billion and EUR 1.165 billion for the current fiscal year, based on a EUR/USD rate of 1.
Revenues are expected to return to growth from fiscal year 2024 on the back of incremental capacity. Elsewhere, cash CapEx will not exceed EUR 400 million per annum for each of the two next fiscal years. We also confirm our discretionary free cash flow objective with an average of EUR 420 million per year for the next two fiscal years. Finally, we confirm our leverage target. As a reminder, these objectives are on a standalone basis and are based on a nominal deployment program. Before handing over to Eva, a reminder of our virtual launches for which you will find more details on the slide here. Over to Eva for the business update on the OneWeb.
Thank you, Christophe. A bit of update since February, where OneWeb has made some very solid progress. As the satellites required to complete the Gen One constellation and finalize the global coverage have been launched, it means that Gen is now fully de-risked. That will be supporting growing revenues above the 50 degree north and will be rolled out below 50 degrees by the end of the year. In terms of ground network, 22 network portals have been completed as end of March, and we're well on track to the full global rollout during 2023. By the end of this month, the OneWeb network will be available north of 35 degrees, which is pretty much all of Europe and all the lower states of the U.S. This will unlock potential for revenue ramp-up in these two key regions.
As planned, global coverage will then follow by January 2024. OneWeb's network currently represents around 450 Gb per second of capacity, which is expected to increase to 1.3 Tb by the end of 2023 when it reaches full global coverage. Today, network utilization rate stands around 5%, a level which is set to dramatically increase as the rollout progresses. The rise of Alaskan fill rate, which has tripled in less than a year, is illustrative of OneWeb's capacity to increase usage in geographies where demand for connectivity is strong. At the end of March, terminal availability is also progressing well. Government terminals are available, maritime flat panels are expected for the second half of this year, and aviation flat terminals by early 2024.
These flat panel represent a significant upgrade from the customer point of view from the dual parabolic currently in use. In terms of on-ground equipment, as I said earlier, we have 22 network portals completed in March and regulation authorities obtained for 170 countries. All of these are key enablers supporting a robust commercial ramp-up as more and more customers buy into the LEO offering. We first communicated OneWeb's backlog last October, it sat between $600 million and $700 million. It's now progressed to $900 million, a $300 million increase, well illustrating the appeal of the LEO offer to a wide variety of connectivity applications. On the back of this, we also expect OneWeb to reach the $50 million revenue objective by end of June this year. OneWeb has built a strong distribution network across three key verticals.
Fixed connectivity, OneWeb has signed a take-or-pay with various customers. It provides satellite backhaul services to Airtel in Africa. It works with Galaxy in Canada, which is already underway, with communities being served with Wi-Fi thanks to OneWeb network. Recently, a multi-million, multi-year deal to provide LEO technology connect remotest part of Southeast Asia has been signed with mu Space. In mobile connectivity, Eutelsat and OneWeb have signed a multi-million, multi-year deal with Intelsat back in February. This deal, as well as the successful trials for the combined aviation antennas that showcase the possibility that's opened up by the GEO and LEO combination, is a very strong proof point. Finally, the OneWeb offer is attracting interest from government applications, both hard and soft gov applications, as evidenced by the trials for remote connectivity broadband in the UK under the Rural Gigabit Connectivity Programme.
In total, OneWeb today has 53 distribution partners, with 75 expected by the end of this year when global coverage have been reached. Just a quick word in terms of timing of the transaction process. We're waiting for the few final authorizations, namely from France and the U.S., before we actually can call for an extraordinary general assembly. We expect this to take place in the course of third quarter of this year. Once it's approved by the EGM, the combination will immediately be live as the teams are fully focused on making this combination a true success. The timeline is fully compatible with the operational and financial objectives communicated at the announcement of the combination. On the back of this, the de-risking of Gen 1, as well as the robust ramp-up of technical and commercial operations in OneWeb, lead us to confirm the value creative synergies.
Regarding revenues, we'll leverage Eutelsat sales force, geographic reach, and existing customer base to accelerate commercial ramp-up in OneWeb. That's already started up within our take-or-pay agreement. OpEx optimization will come mostly from avoidance of future cost ramp-up and cost duplication between the two entities. Last but not least, leveraging a hybrid LEO- GEO satellite infrastructure will unlock Gen 2 rationalization and considerably optimize both fleets and enable significant CapEx savings. These synergies represent a relatively low risk and generate significant value in the order of magnitude EUR 1.5 billion. Previously, we've had a few questions around Gen 2 . The second generation of OneWeb satellite is still expected to unlock significant value at an optimized cost.
With the work ongoing on the design of Gen 2, a few words on the main characteristics of the Gen 2 satellite, which we believe present a compelling economic, technology, and commercial advantage. It will enable us to address a significant portion of the booming connectivity market. The design process is based on a throughout market analysis to ensure right-sizing, while the network is being conceived as to enable fleet expansion at minimum marginal cost. Gen 2 has 3x- 5x the capacity of the Gen 1, but at a lower cost per megabit and further enhancing the network's competitiveness. It will leverage both existing and future GEO infrastructure to focus capacity on high demand areas and reduce overall cost.
Inter-satellite links will represent new functionalities which are key to some of our customers and will reuse a lot of the Gen 1 ground infrastructure, leading to significant CapEx savings. Finally, innovation on smaller terminals to unlock more new use cases. All in all, we believe that this represents $1.5 billion-$1.8 billion of savings from a cost of building a constellation from scratch. The confirmed envelope for Gen 2, around $4 billion is confirmed. Positive discussions with government ECA on support for this big investment is also well underway. That brings to end my short update on OneWeb and Christophe's on Eutelsat's Q3 performance. Both Christophe and I are now ready to take any of your questions.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star one to ask a question. We will pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. Our first question today comes from Sami Kassab of BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Eva. Good morning, Christophe. May I start the question session with video broadcast? At 11%, we had a tough quarter. We've seen trends deteriorate. How do you see the revenue trends evolving in the medium term? Do you think you can reduce the rate of decline or is it bound to continue to accelerate? Perhaps while commenting on that, can you share with us the large customer renewals you have in front of you for the next 12-18 months, please? The second question is on OneWeb. Thank you for providing the useful update. May I kindly ask whether you could give us a rough estimate of how the backhaul is split between the three verticals that you have mentioned? Lastly, could you provide an update on IRIS²?
What are the next key steps and the timeline envisaged on this project? Thank you, Eva.
Yes. Let me maybe hand over first to Christophe on the broadcast, then I'll take the two latter on OneWeb and IRIS².
Okay. Thanks, Eva. Your question on the broadcast. First of all, we confirm that we see a general trend for the business of a decrease in the range of mid-single digit for the coming years. I mean, don't forget that we have been hit particularly this year with some unusual events. For the second part of the question related to the biggest renewal. Actually, we don't have major renewing in the short term, in the 12 months horizon. The next biggest renewals are for fiscal year 25, and they are mainly focused on Europe.
Just, I mean, in terms of the broadcasting, the 10%, 11% is fairly split 50/50 or about half of it comes from the sanction impact, the various sanctions impact. The other is the underlying trend that we see as Christophe was saying, a mid-single digit decline. That's also what we expect in the midterm. On OneWeb, the split to date, or most of the revenues is from fixed broadband. That's all of the revenue today. Essentially we see mobility starting up now with the flat panels and the maritime segment kicking in very strongly. We expect to see that coming live over the H2 this year with much more mobility revenue.
We think aviation is gonna come in more in 2024. There's been some very successful tests, and you've seen the big take or pay from Intelsat, which is very focused on the aviation on the aviation segment, so. We think that will be mostly in 2024 that will start kicking in. Government is not yet representing a lot, but there are lots of tests with government, both in terms of government, as we highlighted in the UK, but we also have a lot of military interest in starting to experiment with this.
Today, most of it is from fixed broadband, and we expect to see fixed broadband continue to be a very large chunk of it, especially on the back of the very successful cases on mobile backhaul in the telco space. On IRIS², let me give you a few comments on the timeline as we see it right now, and if you want more details, please reiterate a question. The timeline is right now that we are waiting for the feedback from the EU Commission by the end of May. At that time, they declare which of the different bidding consortiums will be eligible to be able to receive the detailed RFP.
As you know, the first round was a high-level RFP, which didn't have all the details in terms of security requirements and so forth. We'll only receive that by the end of May. Then there's a very significant amount of work for the consortium over the summer on actually responding to the RFP, and there'll be a first handout back in September and the PAFO likely in November. Expected timeline is right now that by February, the Commission will have appointed the winning consortium.
As you can almost hear, this is a very tight timeline, so it's quite a lot of work that needs to go on there, which is why we are right now spending a lot of time on ramping up the joint team in the consortium, be sure that we are ready to hit the ground running once we get the detailed RFP.
Many thanks, Eva. One last follow-up on the IRIS² project. Given that the three largest satellite operators in Europe and the largest manufacturers have come together in one consortium, can you help me understand what are the other potential consortium likely to be? Who are these competitive consortium, please?
We haven't gotten a lot of details back from the Commission on who they are. We know there are other bidders. That's pretty much what we know today. There are lots of rumors swirling around in the market, but we do believe that there are other bidders that are also responded to this. I think part of it is that part of the reason we come together that it's such a strategic and important project, which is quite significant amount of work for all of the operators that we actually believe we are much better on joining forces to really respond to this highly strategic project from the Commission.
Thank you very much.
Our next question today comes from Alexander Peterc of Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking our question, and good morning to both of you. First of all, on IRIS², would you help me understand what kind of assets you may contribute to this project? Is it involving, I mean, we understand it's a multi-orbit project, so will this involve potentially OneWeb after the consolidation with OneWeb, and your GEO assets as well? How you think about this? Secondly, do you foresee any complications from the fact that the U.K. government, who is now not part of the E.U., is going to be a major shareholder of yours? Would that limit your potential participation? You know, how we should think also about any CapEx requirements that this project may entail?
I have a follow-up. Thank you.
Thank you, Alexander . A very relevant question. Let me give you my best given that we have not yet seen the detailed RFP. Take it with a bit of salt. It is clear from the description that what the commission is looking for is a multi-orbit satellite constellation. That's very clearly spelled out by the commission in it. That's also what you can see in us joining forces that we'll actually be able to provide a multi-orbit constellation. You know, SES has a very strong presence in MEO. We all provide GEO capacity. After the merger with OneWeb, we also have LEO capacity.
Now we need to know exactly what are the functionalities and what are the things that the European Commission will be looking for. It's clear that we'd also have an option in the discussions in the merger discussions with OneWeb to actually have a part of the Gen 2 of OneWeb outside the so-called golden share of the U.K. government, as long as it is a distinct customer requirement. Naturally, sovereignty and security requirements could be part of that, which would be true for any customer with specific requirements, would be something that we would try to respond also finding synergies with the Gen 2 of OneWeb.
Got you. Thank you. That's very clear. My second question is really on government. Although there's been an improvement in the renewals, 70% in the spring campaign versus fall, it's still relatively low. Could you help us understand how you think on the shape of the government business going forward based on these low renewal rates? Thank you.
Yes. On the government, let me just, we are seeing better renewal rates for the U.S. DOD. As you know, U.S. DOD is still more than two-thirds, way more than two-thirds of the government business. It's a very big customer for all satellite operators. We are starting to see better renewal rates than we've seen before. On top of it, we're also starting to see some non-U.S. DOD customers coming in. Next year we'll also likely have the payload coming in with EGNOS, which is launching this. It's a good thing that we start diversifying the government business, so it's not solely depending on the renewal rates in the U.S. DOD.
Of course, U.S. DOD is still a big driver when you look at the growth year-over-year. It is starting also, I think, we're now getting more and more out of the comparisons in the Afghanistan ramp down, which of course is also why we're starting to expect also slightly better renewal rates on U.S. DOD. The key to this is also diversifying, and we have lots of discussions ongoing with various European militaries. I think it's no secret to anybody that that's a discussion which has heated up since the crisis between Russia and Ukraine. It is something that a lot of the military customers are asking for.
Excellent. Thank you very much. Very, very quickly, just lastly, versus your expectations, let's say six to nine months ago, regarding how OneWeb would build its contract backlog, do you think that's currently or ahead or below your initial expectations, just qualitatively? Thank you.
I think in terms of the OneWeb, the backlog ramping up, we were between EUR 600 million- EUR 700 million in the fall, and now we're around EUR 900 million, with a EUR 300 million increase. I think that's to me, that's a strong signal of this moving forward. I think the focus is now switching over, and that will be the focus in next fiscal year of continue of course, to increase the sales backlog, but also converting that sales backlog into actual revenues. That's a focus we're switching a little bit now saying, you know, we're getting close to EUR 1 billion in backlog. That's a fantastic and big number, and we actually see a lot of customer interest for this.
We wanna switch it over and make sure that those take-or-pay actually make it into revenues. On top of that's not even counted, a lot of the distributor agreements are actually pay-as-you-go agreements. Counting for nothing in the sales backlog, but also actually activating these pay-as-you-go customers where they simply have a rate card and starting to sell in and generating revenue is also one of the objectives for the coming time.
Excellent. Thank you very much.
As a reminder, should you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Bojan Rajic of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone. Thank you for the questions. I've got three please, all around OneWeb. Thanks for the extra detail. It's very helpful. I've just got a question on the first question around the fill rate. Eva, you mentioned the 5% fill rate. Can I just check, how should we think about the order book, which is now at $900 billion, in relation to the fill rate? What, you know, what does that $900 million imply for the fill rate, I guess, to give us a scope of how that could grow and the as the network builds up? Secondly, on the terminal availability, what model should we think about for OneWeb deploying in terms of selling those terminals?
OneWeb gonna be, and Eutelsat, I guess combined, gonna be selling that or is that gonna be done mainly by resellers? I guess the question is, how should we think about the margin dilution, if any, from that? Thirdly, just around the ongoing authorization from France and the U.S., and what are they, I guess, specifically looking into? Is there anything different that they are looking into versus some of the other approved authorizations that you've received from other governments? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Rajic. A lot of good questions here. Let me try to see what I can do here. In terms of our order book, which is coming up to $900 million now, in terms of take-up pace, we expect still that to be less than 10% of the capacity that will actually be available, the 1.3 TB. There's lots of additional capacity also for pay-as-you-go customers who are not taking a take-or-pay. What's key with these take-or-pays is of course that when we have customers signing up for take-or-pay, they typically get an exclusivity in an area. We've seen the new IM from Saudi Arabia with some exclusivity and taking all the capacity in that area.
That's what we're trying to do in some areas where it actually gives us a good starting point. There will also be quite a lot of capacity will be sold on a pay-as-you-go and on non-exclusive deals. Ample possibility of ramp. As you know, the take-or-pays are a mix of kind of five up to some up to almost 10 years of length of contracts. Some of them might even reach into Gen 2. In terms of terminal availability, I think today the terminal well, OneWeb has a strategy of multiple terminals, so terminals adapted to each use case, which will be a portfolio. You'll see terminals that are adapted to government coming out in the second half.
We have the maritime terminals, the flat panels, coming out this summer, and getting installed. Today, we are reselling terminals but not subsidizing and massively behind terminals. Subsidies... most of the customers actually buy the terminal. Of course, the terminal does not necessarily carry the same margin as the capacity, but it's not subsidized, as you can see in other business models. That's one of the advantages of being a pure B2B focus. Lastly, on the authorizations, in France, it is the foreign investor authorizations of the OneWeb investors that are coming into the Eutelsat ownership. Those are some of the general requirements that are put on foreign investments into France.
I think that is a part of an administrative process, which I think we can solve probably within the next month or so. The Team Telecom FCC process. As you know, CFIUS is already is already okay for the U.S., so it's a Team Telecom FCC process in the U.S. that's outstanding. Here, I think they're taking a bit of time, getting to know especially the Eutelsat side a little bit better, given that OneWeb has already been through a Team Telecom FCC process earlier this year and finalized that. Team Telecom and FCC does not know Eutelsat as well, they are just trying to get familiar a little bit with our business. It's a lot of information and Q&A going back and forth.
We're on round four now, so I think we are close to hopefully the end of the list of questions. We'll be hopefully moving forward in the approval process. In terms of timing, as you know, the Team Telecom FCC has around 120 days to approve it, and we're pretty much halfway through that, so we're around the 60-day mark. We'll expect something will happen within the next couple of weeks.
Great. That's super helpful. Just quick follow-up on those approvals. Based on your answer, I mean, most of the or all of the discussions are just around, kind of ownership, or foreign ownership, as you said, rather than any questions around competition or, you know, market share.
No, as I said... Yes, exactly. CFIUS is already cleared, right? CFIUS is cleared. This is much more about clearly understanding security requirements and fulfilling various security requirements as we are a big supplier to the U.S. DOD. They've already been through all of that with OneWeb. It's mainly. On the French side, it's mainly around foreign investors into a French-listed company. I think that's the two procedures. In terms of competition, the CFIUS has cleared and all the other countries have cleared as well.
It's not the same type of a merger as the one you see elsewhere in the industry, where you have two already very big competitors trying to combine and thereby also limiting, potentially limiting competition. This is quite different. As you know, OneWeb last year didn't have any revenue, so it's a somewhat different combination, which is of course also why there's a few questions on how this is gonna work and how this looks, but it's not in terms of the limiting of the competition. Actually, we see almost the opposite in the Team Telecom discussions. They are looking forward to getting some competition, because we would right now be the only new competitor up against Starlink.
As most markets actually want multiple suppliers, in the different markets, it's actually almost the opposite as limiting of competition. It's actually encouraging competition.
Perfect. Super helpful. Thank you very much.
If there are no further questions at this time, I would like to turn the call back to Eva Berneke for any additional or closing remarks.
Well, thank you for your questions. I hope we've been able to both confirm our guidance both for this year and also the midterm. I think that was as we see it absolutely in line with also your expectations, so we hope we answered to that. Of course, if there are any more detailed questions on the Eutelsat standalone performance and objectives, feel free to get back to us. I hope we also enabled you to understand a little bit better where we are in the actual merger with OneWeb, which we hope to be completing next quarter. Of course, the bigger question is, will we manage to talk to you again at the end of our financial year in July?
Will this be a doubled up where we also manage to close the OneWeb deal? It's uncertain, we still do hope that we'll close the merger in over the next quarter. Of course, the detailed timing is depending on what you've asked several questions about the last couple of regulatory approvals. We're doing everything we can to move this forward, and it is super exciting work. I am looking very much forward to any other questions or any other dialogues we have around this over the next quarter. Thank you, everybody, for getting up this morning and joining our call. With that, I hope you'll all have a great day.
This concludes today's call. Thank Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.