Good day, welcome to Eutelsat H1 2022 and 2023 result conference call and webcast. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Eva Berneke, CEO. Madam, please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, at least those of you on kind of European time zone, welcome, and thank you for joining us today for Eutelsat half year 22/23 results presentation. I'm happy to be joined here today by Christophe, who is our new Chief Financial Officer. Christophe brings a wealth of experience as CFO from more than 30 years in global industries with operational excellence and long-term investments as key elements. I'm sure he'll contribute positively to the transformation of Eutelsat. You'll hear more from him in just a second. Let's now turn to the results. First, a quick overview of the highlights H1 . In terms of numbers, H1 operating verticals revenues were in our forecast range of objectives for the full year.
Despite this, which is a revenue decline, we reported further industry-leading profitability with an EBITDA margin at 73%, a level that also reflects the progressive rebalancing of our business towards connectivity. On the operational side, we successfully launched four satellites this half year, ensuring a seamless service for existing customers and also paving the way for return to growth. H1 also saw the rapid ramp-up of EUTELSAT QUANTUM, with now seven out of eight beams commercialized in the first year of service. We've also made further progress on our telecom pivot. The successful reorganization of the company along two business units, one for video and one for connectivity, to reinforce customer centricity and better address the different market opportunities, as well as the ramp-up of new Eutelsat ADVANCE services.
With all of this, we confirm the standalone full year 2022/2023, as well as the longer-term financial objectives. Finally, I'll make an update on OneWeb commercialization, which is progressing according to plan, and closing is still expected in Q2 or Q3 of this calendar year. Looking at Eutelsat H1 financial performance. Total H1 revenue stood at EUR 574 million, down by 6.1% on a like-for-like basis. Revenues of the 5 operating verticals stood at EUR 582 million, down 4.1%. The EBITDA margin was just under 73 at 72.9% at constant currency, down 3.2 points versus last year. Cash CapEx was EUR 194 million in the H1 , which is higher than last year.
It reflects the phasing of the satellite programs with four launches this half year, delivery and launch, and is not representative of the full year. In the H2 , we don't expect to launch any satellites from Eutelsat. Discretionary free cash flow stood at EUR 82 million on a reported basis and EUR 121 on an adjusted basis. It's down EUR 111 compared to H1 2022. Likewise, this is not representative of the expected full year figure because of the phasing of the satellite launches into this first semester. A net debt to EBITDA stood at 3.55 at the end December, broadly stable against last year. As mentioned, this past semester has seen considerably operational success with a record number of 4 satellite launches.
These launches illustrate operational excellence and our capacity to select the best industrial partners in a context where demand for satellites and launchers is just booming. First, start September, we launched KONNECT VHTS, which was built by Thales Alenia Space and launched by Arianespace in Kourou in early September. KONNECT VHTS brings connectivity across Europe and Africa with more than 500 gigabits covering the European and African geographies. The two next ones is the HOTBIRD 13F and 13G that both were built by Airbus Defence and Space and launched by SpaceX in October and December respectively. These two serve our video market on our key 13 degrees position across Europe. Finally, but not least, EUTELSAT 10B, which was also built by TAS, was launched by SpaceX in late November.
EUTELSAT 10B is also providing additional capacity for the mobility market in Europe. Throughout the development of these programs, we managed to keep their cost within our cash CapEx annual envelope of EUR 400 million. These launches will pave the way for return to connectivity-driven growth while ensuring seamless service for existing customers. The KONNECT VHTS with 500 gigabits of capacity is dedicated to fixed broadband and mobile connectivity, with more than EUR 450 million secured incremental backlog from operators like Orange, Telecom Italia, and TAS. EUTELSAT 10B will give incremental 35 gigabits in the Ku-band addressing mainly mobile connectivity, but also with a strong list of pre-commitment signs with Panasonic. We are also embarking a wide beam C-band and Ku-band payloads to ensure continuity for customers that are already on the existing satellite on EUTELSAT 10A.
and 13G, the two HOTBIRDs will ensure broadcasting service continuity at our flagship 13 East position. That broadcast over 3,800 TV channels just by that position. Additionally on the one of the HOTBIRDs, the 13G, it's also hosting the EGNOS GEO-4 payload, which gives European space additional capacity. One word on EUTELSAT QUANTUM, which just celebrated its one year anniversary in operational service. It came into operational service in November 2021. This software-defined satellite, first of its kind, has given customers a real-time adaptability to evolving business needs. It gives full in-orbit reconfiguration in terms of footprint, spectrum, power and capacity, gives customers remote control of beam customization, and it gives enhanced security features and interference mitigation capabilities. After just one year, seven out of eight beams have been commercialized.
5 of the 7 are incremental capacity, with 2 for government applications and 3 for mobile connectivity, 1 of which was just booked this last quarter. The satellite's contribution is shaping up to be more balanced towards mobile connectivity, where demand is truly booming. We also have a well-advanced discussion for the commercialization of the final beam, hopefully in the coming quarter. I'll move on now and give you a bit of a deeper dive in the operating verticals. I start with the full results, where H1 revenues stood at EUR 574 million, up 0.3 on a reported basis. Other revenues, as a reminder, revenues other than those generated from the commercialization of satellite capacity are volatile by nature, and these were down EUR 12 million, with most of this impact resulting from the variation of hedging revenues.
Excluding a positive currency effect of EUR 37 million based on euro to dollar rate of 1.01 versus 1.17 last year, revenues of the five operating verticals were actually down 4.1% on a like for like basis. Let's look at each of the five operating segments in more detail. As a reminder, all comments are based on a like for like at constant currency. Broadcast, which is today 58% of group total, recorded revenues of EUR 339 million, down 6.7% versus last year. Data and professional video, which is 14% of group total, saw revenues of EUR 83 million, down 2.5%. Government services, 12% of group total, saw revenues at EUR 67 million, down 20.3%. Fixed broadband, which today represents 6% of revenue, came to EUR 37 million with an organic growth of 17%.
Mobility, which is about 10% of total, saw an increase with 32.7% to revenues of EUR 56 million. Other revenues, as I said, stood at EUR -8 million, which includes the EUR 12 million negative hedging impact. I'll start with broadcast. First, revenues were down 6.7% to EUR 339 million. This reflects both, which we've discussed previously, the headwind we have in the renewal of the capacity of Nilesat 7/8 West. It also includes the negative impact of the non-renewal of capacity with Digiturk, which came in place from mid-November. Finally, it reflects the general negative trend across the entire video broadcast segment with revenues across Europe.
Second quarter revenues were down 6% on a year-to-year basis and 1.4% on a quarter-on-quarter, reflecting principally the phase out of the Nilesat impact from mid-October, while the Digiturk impact started to materialize only from mid-November and then onwards. Looking ahead over the full year, the trends should see a slight deterioration compared to that of H1 , as the impact of the sanctions against certain Russian and Iranian channels will be fully embarked in H2 . Data and professional video. Data and professional video revenues stood at EUR 83 million, down 2.5% year-on-year. In fixed data, which is two-thirds of the revenues, the improved volume trends are now offsetting most of the negative impact of competitive pricing pressure.
Professional video, which is the 1/3 of the video in the segment, recorded a mid-single digit decline, namely on the back of lower occasional use in Q1, especially in the Americas, as well as the structural headwinds. Top line for the year as a whole is expected to decrease in the mid-single digit range due to the seasonality of some contracts, notably in professional video. Government services stood at EUR 67 million, down 20.3% year-on-year. They reflect a negative carry forward effect of prior U.S. Department of Defense renewals, in particular with a 65% renewal rate in the fall 2022 campaign, following the 75% renewal rate in the spring 2022. That's due to the specific U.S. geopolitical context and our capacity mapped against that. The H2 will reflect the full effect of the above-mentioned headwinds.
Fixed broadband H1 revenues stood at EUR 37 million, up 17% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis. This reflected the contribution from 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. Over the full year, fixed broadband should be broadly stable as the comparison basis now better reflects the above-mentioned contracts in Europe and Africa. Growth in this segment is, of course, expected to re-accelerate in next financial year on the back of the entry into service of the KONNECT VHTS, which will provide much more capacity than on the current Konnect satellite.
Finally, on mobile connectivity, H1 revenue stood at EUR 56 million, up 32.7% year-on-year, reflecting in particular the commercial success of EUTELSAT QUANTUM, for which 2 additional beams were commercialized for incremental capacity in maritime mobility during the H2 , bringing the total number of beams commercialized for mobile connectivity to 3. Second quarter revenue stood at EUR 30 million, up 33.8% year-on-year, and by 13.3% quarter-on-quarter, reflecting the timing of the commercialization of the third beam of EUTELSAT QUANTUM for maritime mobility. This very positive dynamic is expected to translate into double-digit growth for the full year, albeit at a somewhat slower pace compared to the first H1, as the comparison basis will gradually reflect some of the above mentioned, as well as other incremental contracts.
After the five segments, we'll turn to the backlog and fill rate. The backlog stood at EUR 3.7 billion in December 2022 versus EUR 4.2 billion a year earlier and EUR 4.0 billion in June 2022. The natural erosion of the backlog in the H1 more than offset the contribution of the wholesale contract with Swisscom on Eutelsat Konnect, as well as the new beams commercialized on EUTELSAT QUANTUM. The backlog is equivalent to 3.2 times 2021, 2022 revenues, broadcast represents 59% of the total versus 64% a year ago. The backlog profile is progressively reflecting the rebalancing of our operations towards connectivity with less longer-term contracts. Also note that the backlog does not include managed services yet, but we are looking into a methodology that will better reflect these services also in the backlog.
The number of operational transport transponders by the end of December 2022 stood at 1,359, broadly stable year on year and compared to end June 2022, with no entry into service of any regular capacity or end of stable orbit life of any satellite over the last 12 months. The number of utilized transponders stood at 955, down 19 units year on year, and down by 21 units compared to end June. The latter reflecting notably the return of capacity by Digiturk starting mid-November. As a result, the fill rate stood at 70.2%, compared to 70.6% a year later and 73.2% at end June. I'll hand over to Christophe for a bit more on the financial performance.
Thanks, Eva. Hello, everybody. Happy to be here with all of you. I will start with the EBITDA, which stood at EUR 419 million at the end of December 2022, compared to EUR 436 million last year, down by 3.8%. The EBITDA margin stood at 72.9% at constant currency. That is to say 73% on a reported basis versus 76.1% in H1 2022. This is on the back of lower revenues, mainly in the broadcast vertical. Operating costs were EUR 18 million higher than last year, reflecting first, higher bad debt, second, increased staff costs due to a changing mix of revenue and to a lower extent, salary inflation, and third, the cost incurred by transactions with Russia. The EBITDA margin is reflective of the progressive rebalancing of our business towards connectivity applications.
Turning to the P&L. Group share of net income stood at EUR 52 million versus EUR 163 million a year earlier, down by 68.2% and representing a margin of 9%. This reflected on the positive side, lower depreciation of EUR 234 million versus EUR 243 million in H1 2022, which was due to lower in orbit as well as on ground depreciation. On the negative side was reflected, other operating expenses of minus EUR 34 million compared to an income of EUR 84 million last year, which mainly included the $125 million payment of the Phase I of C-band proceeds.
A negative financial results of EUR 56 million versus EUR 35 million last year, reflecting an unfavorable evolution of foreign exchange gains and losses. Lastly, negative net income from associates of EUR 39 million related the full semester contribution of the stake in OneWeb, which last year was only from September 21 onwards. The effective tax rate was 1% versus 24% last year. The decrease was mainly due to a lower French tax rate as well as a more favorable impact of the specific French satellite tax regime. Last year's tax rate was also inflated by the 30% taxation of the $125 million payment related to the Phase I of C-band proceeds. Moving now to cash.
Net cash flow from operations amounted to EUR 353 million, down by EUR 10 million, reflecting the lower EBITDA, partially compensated by lower working capital requirements needs, thanks to strong cash collection this semester. Cash CapEx amounted to EUR 194 million, EUR 96 million higher than last year. It reflected the phasing of satellite program delivery and launch, with four satellites launched this semester. This is not representative of the expected full-year figure. Interest on other fees paid amounted to EUR 77 million versus EUR 70 million last year. The slight increase mostly reflects capitalized interest from the credit facility drawn down for the financing of satellite programs. As a result, discretionary free cash flow amounted to EUR 82 million on a reported basis, down EUR 113 million compared to last year.
Adjusted discretionary free cash flow as per our financial objective, that is excluding Forex hedging on one-offs, stood at EUR 121 million, also down EUR 111 million year-on-year. Turning to the next slide. At the end of December 2022, net debt ended at EUR 2,996 million, up EUR 182 million versus end of June. It reflected the lower discretionary free cash flow of EUR 82 million generated in the H1 . The lower dividend payment of EUR 81 million following the payment of part of the dividend in shares under the scrip option. The outflow regarding inorganic investment of EUR 34 million for OneWeb. Other items which contributed to the increase in net debt for an impact of EUR 149 million.
This reflects mostly the use of a debt-related finance lease for the financing of satellite programs, which amounted to EUR 200 million. As a result, as you can see on slide 22, the net debt to EBITDA ratio ended at 3.55 times, compared to 3.53 times at the end of December 2021 and 3.27 times at the end of June 2022. As a reminder, December represents a peak in the annual leverage profile, reflecting the timing of the dividend payment. It was also impacted in H1 fiscal year 2023 by the phasing on investments. The average cost of debt after hedging stood at 2.67% versus 2.5% in H1 2022. The weighted average debt maturity stood at 4.1 years compared to 4.5 years at the end of December 2021.
Last but not least, liquidity remains strong with undrawn credit lines and cash around EUR 1.3 billion. With that, I will now hand it over to Eva to present the outlook.
Thank you, Christophe. We've made strong progress on the telecom pivot, with most of the elements of this strategy now in place. It will help rebalance our business towards connectivity where demand is booming. More specifically, we've reorganized the company along 2 business units, video and connectivity, to better capture market opportunities. We now rely on an innovative end-to-end platform to deliver our services to customers as we have successfully launched Eutelsat ADVANCE. As we saw before, we brought substantial growth capacity with high level of pre-commitments. We've now access to OneWeb capabilities providing a unique combination of GEO and LEO to expand the addressable market. Finally, in numbers, the contribution of our connectivity revenue now represents 30% of total operating verticals revenues versus 25% 4 years ago.
As a reminder, 3 satellites bring incremental growth, have already been launched, two others with entry into service in the coming years. We talked about the 4 ones we already launched, and on top of that, we have EUTELSAT 36D, predominantly a replacement satellite for broadcast, but it also carries an incremental UHF payload operated by Airbus. The FlexSat for the Americas will bring more than 100 gigabyte-bits of incremental capacity over the Americas to support the growing connectivity market. On the back of all of this, we confirm our financial outlook.
We expect to generate operating revenues between EUR 1 billion 135 million-EUR 1 billion 165 million for the current fiscal year based on a euro dollar rate of 1. Revenues are expected to return to growth from next financial year 2024 on the back of this incremental capacity already launched. Elsewhere, cash CapEx will not exceed EUR 400 million per year for each of the next 2 fiscal years. We also confirm our discretionary free cash flow objective with an average of EUR 420 million per year for the next 2 fiscal years. Finally, we confirm our leverage targets. A quick update on the progress of our participation in OneWeb since the October strategic update, and the company has made a lot of positive progress and is well on track to deliver its objectives.
On the fleet side, now 16 launches have been completed with 85% of the satellites now in orbit. OneWeb is currently providing coverage at 50 degrees northern latitude and is well on track for the 33 degree north latitude by May this year. That will give you coverage of most of Europe and the United States. Two more launches are planned for end of February, start March, and with that they'll have reached full coverage, which will be operational by January 2024. In terms of business, OneWeb continues to see a very positive commercial momentum with a secured backlog of now EUR 800 million at the end of December 2022, up EUR 200 million from October strategic update. Revenue is on track to reach the EUR 50 million in our financial year that ends June 2023.
Key contracts have been won and partnerships have been signed in some of the key verticals where demand is well oriented, namely Airtel in Africa for cellular backhaul and Galaxy in Canada for community broadband. In terms of the transaction where we combine OneWeb and Eutelsat, regulatory approval work stream is progressing according to plan, with no E.U. referral considered, France and U.S. procedures still ongoing. The remainder is fairly pretty much closed, so mainly France and U.S. are still ongoing. Closing the transaction is expected to be in Q2 or Q3 this year, conditioned upon the customary regulatory approvals, Eutelsat Extraordinary General Assembly approval and of course, approval from the French stock market authorities on the prospectus. This concludes our presentation. Thank you for your attention, and we'll be happy to answer your questions.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are 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 question. We will take our first question from Roshan Ranjit. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Oh, great. Morning, everyone. Thank you for the questions and presentation. I've got three questions, please. You have highlighted a pickup in bad debt. Can you give us a bit more detail here? Is that isolated to the known, I guess, headwinds in from Russia and Iran, or is that at a bit more wider level? Which segment is that coming from, please? I guess maybe coupled onto that, you're highlighting margin dilution. We've clearly seen an increase in exposure to mobile connectivity. Can you maybe give us a split of the kind of initial margin that you are able to book from connectivity customers versus the typical broadcast customers? Is there anything going on between a kind of retail or wholesale mix within that as well?
Second question. You highlighted another beam could be sold in the coming quarters. Again, is that within mobility? Are you seeing any interest from any other end segments? Finally, just on OneWeb, could we get a sense of the type of discussions that were going on at the regulatory level? You said that there's no EU referral. What kind of made them happy? What feedback you've got on the French and U.S. side? Just tied into that, any update on generation 2 on OneWeb, please? Thank you very much.
Sorry, four questions. I'll let Christophe answer the question on bad debt. Then I'll take, I'll probably take the other three ones because I think they are great questions. Let's start with your first question on bad debt.
Okay. Related to the hiccup on the bad debt, it's, as you said, it's mostly related to not to the Russian customer actually, but related to the sanctions with Iran, for which we had to book a depreciation. We also had a slight hiccup in with Middle East customers, and this is the main reasons. Coming back to your point, I would say it's mostly focused on the impact of the sanctions.
Most of the bad debts from the Iranians who will now close down entirely. Coming back to your question on the impact on the margins of connectivity, it's clear that right now we have two effects in our connectivity business, both the rapid build of a service business in with Eutelsat ADVANCE, which is yet not mature, so not at what you'd call maturity margins. You probably you will also have in here the reselling of OneWeb, which also has some effect on margins given that today it is a resale agreement, of course not at the same margins of this.
We do see some margin dilution from the connectivity, but mainly related to the rapid growth in the market and the build up of a service offering in that market. On the Quantum beam, I'd say the two segments that are that the Quantum satellite is targeted on is government and mobility. I think the last beam is also expected rather shortly, actually, likely in the government segment. But in any case, we have a strong demand for the satellite, which you've seen with actually additional demand coming out of the mobility segment, which could be a good backup. But we are fairly confident that we have the last beam in test right now with a customer.
On the OneWeb, on the regulatory approval, the two outstanding ones is simply because of the time span and the number of question rounds that are fairly typical. It's nothing out of the ordinary either with the French authorities, nor with the U.S. FCC Team Telecom. We've seen a referral to Team Telecom, which I think we announced back in Q4, which is totally normal procedure in the FCC in terms of approval, and that just typically takes up to half a year. We are in the rounds of questions back and forth, which we hope coming towards an end, which is why we estimate that we'll be able to have closure on this in Q2 or Q3.
I think we haven't had any questions on a regulatory level that were not perfectly normal. We don't have a lot of overlap between OneWeb's market today and Eutelsat. We're in different orbits, and we don't have competing capacities. Of course, there is a need to fully understand the satellite market, given that especially the constellation market is fairly new to regulators. Did we take the next question? Maybe there's no more questions.
We will take the next questions from Sami Kassab. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you, good morning, Eva, and bonjour, bienvenue, Christophe. I have my usual three questions as well, please. The first one, fixed broadband is up 17% in H1, it's guided to be broadly stable for the full year. Does that suggest that H2 will see declining revenues? If so, can you remind me what's driving the decline in H2? Secondly, can you please comment on the latest development with regards to the EU satellite communications project? What do you see as the key milestones ahead for this project to go ahead? Lastly, if my memory serves me right, EUTELSAT QUANTUM was initially presented as a satellite for the government service market, where prices usually are higher than in the mobility sector. You seem to have repositioned the commercial approach towards mobility. May I ask why that?
May I ask whether you still expect Quantum to generate around EUR 35 million of annual revenues at capacity? Thank you, Eva.
Yep. I think let me just start with the last one on the Quantum here. Yes, you're right that in the beginning, we kind of targeted because of the high level of security and also flexibility on the Quantum satellite in terms of operating the beams for the government market. We also had seen some beams sold to the government market here. What we've seen is there's been a very interesting segment in the maritime mobility, which is actually wanted to pay the same kind of prices. We don't see necessarily a price decline in that satellite with the current commercialization. It does split differently in the two segments.
We have three of the beams in the mobility segment where we probably expected most of it to be in the government segment. You are right on that one, but it's not that we see a deterioration of the pricing picture on Quantum right now. It is quite unique capacity in the market as we currently stand. Latest development on Iris squared is you probably saw the news last week on the approval of the Iris EU space project. I think in general, we are super supportive of EU actually getting involved in the space area. We think it's an area of European serenity, which is where it is a very welcome development that EU wants to become a player in it.
We are of course, following very closely the developments around the tender. Right now, we expect to see the invitation to tender the ITT mid-March after the approval just last week. A fairly rapid and ambitious timeline. Mid-March we will know, we'll know exactly what the EU is thinking, what are the criteria linked to both eligibility to tender, but also of course, what's actually the content of the RFP. In the meanwhile, we're working on several fronts. We are working on what's the right consortium, what's the right partnerships we need to. I doubt anybody would wanna bid this as a single standalone company. It's very likely that we'll be in a partnership, in a consortium with other players. What's the right combination?
Those are a lot of the discussions going on, left, right, and center in the European space industry. Of course, we're also preparing eventual eligibility criterias, especially after this combination with OneWeb. We just wanna make sure that Eutelsat continues to be eligible and a highly relevant partner for the IRIS² project. For your decline versus the 17% increase, yes, we do actually expect to see a decline in H2 , mainly linked to some of the timing and phasing of Konnect in that market before we see the entry into service in September of the KONNECT VHTS. Some of the contracts has been structured that way, that we do expect to see a small decline in the next half year, coming in then with a strong growth once we start commercializing KONNECT VHTS next year.
Thank you, Eva.
I hope that covered your three questions. Thanks for the question.
Can I?
Yeah, go ahead.
A quick follow-up. The line broke down partly when you answered the Quantum question. Did you reiterate the 35-ish million EUR annual revenues? Implicitly, I would imagine you have, given that prices are the same, but I did not understand or did not hear the answer to that part of the question, please.
No, I don't think we have any significant price erosion compared to what we expected on this one. Yes.
Thank you. On the IRIS², is there a way whereby the European Union decides to reinvent the wheel and to support the launching and manufacturing industry rather than the satellite operators? Or is that out of the table, and you think the most likely scenario is for the satellite operators to be involved?
I think satellite operators are all very interested to be involved for sure. We certainly hope to be part of consortiums where you also see satellite operators. I think your guess is as good as mine in terms of what Europe will be coming out with next week. We are all looking very interested. There's lots of rumors flying around. I certainly hope that they'll think about involving also European operators. Both Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, and France have strong operators. We certainly hope to be part of this super interesting venture as well.
Fantastic. Many thanks for your answers. Thank you very much, Eva.
We will take our next questions from Carl Murdock-Smith. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thank you very much. 2 questions from me. The first one I'm actually stealing from Roshan because I don't think you actually commented on it. Just an update on your thoughts around OneWeb Gen 2, around kind of funding and timing of that. Any commentary on that would be very interesting. Secondly, just on government services, again, today's numbers have missed consensus and the decline there is still quite aggressive. Just wondering in terms of your view of kind of when will we reach bottom on government services revenues in terms of the kind of U.S. geopolitical context, and how much more is there still to kind of come out there, and what are your early expectations as we go into the spring renewal period?
Thank you.
Yeah. Good questions. Thank you for keeping me honest on getting to answer all your questions. I will start with the Gen 2, which I did forget. On Gen 2, it is, as we are already shareholders in OneWeb, we do actually follow the reflection on Gen 2 quite closely, as shareholders. It is moving forward nicely. We will likely need a Gen 2 in 2027, 2028 when the current Gen 1 will start needing renewal on the orbital positions. We do have replacement for the first couple of orbital plans of Gen 1 in order to bring the lifespan to 2027, 2028.
You can say, "Oh, that's a long time out," but it's actually not that long time out. It does mean we'll have to probably put out an RFP, Q2 is most likely this year, and hopefully get industry responses back in Q3, Q4 this year, in order to have a good full picture. We've been guiding Gen 2 around the EUR 4 billion mark, and we're still fairly convinced that that's going to be feasible given the synergies that is with a lot of the infrastructure already in place for Gen 1. Also, of course, the way we are conceiving the Gen 2. We're still fairly comfortable with that envelope. Timing on when that spending will start.
I think next, fiscal year we'll start seeing a little bit, but that's kind of early design, elements, and we'll of course see in our next fiscal year probably also the choice, of the suppliers, in, the Gen 2. I think the big spendings will be in the years after, and of course, around the launches, which will happen 25, 26. In those year, that will be, kind of more significant amounts of the Gen 2 spending that will be needed in those years. Of course, we can't exactly say, when the different things will fall before we actually have the responses coming back and the exact timeline.
As you know, it's also an industry where we often have use of vendor financing that can smoothen out a little bit some of the CapEx spend. All of that, I think will be probably much more clear into the start of our next financial year. On the government services, you're right. It's been 2 consecutive, quite poor renewal campaigns. We do think we start being out of the kind of ramp down on capacities from Afghanistan and some of those areas. We certainly do see we'll see some more stability and not the same amount of negative development over the next 2 renewal campaigns.
Of course, some of our expectations previously had been related to, that we expected Quantum to fall entirely within the government segment as some of the previous questions also pointed to. Given that they now count in the mobility segment rather than the government segment, that also accentuates a little bit the decline, compared to our expectations.
That's great. Thanks very much.
Thanks.
We have a written question from Thomas Singlehurst from Citi. Can you give a bit more color on the price versus volume trends within Broadcast and how this will evolve going into 2024? Should we be assuming mid to single digit declines into the outer years?
Good question, Tom. Thanks for that. I do think we see what we see right now. What is hurting us most is the two kind of what I call volume declines from respectively the non-renewal of Nilesat capacity and then the Digiturk, which are clearly volume related. Prices are holding up fairly well. So it's more the kind of volume decrease where certain customers reduce the amount of volume they need rather than a price pressure. And as you might imagine, we're also working on a lot of elements that will protect your pricing in terms of a better quality of service and so forth. So it's more volume game right now.
Yeah, I think mid single digit decline is probably the likely outlook also in the outer years, in this video broadcast market. It is, it is an underlying structural trend, in that order of magnitude. Should we take the next either written or direct question? Are we out of questions or anybody is sitting with a question they're burning to put forward, or should we maybe wrap this up for now? I just give you kind of 5, 10 seconds to shout loudly or punch one or whatever you need to do. Doesn't sound that way. In that case, I just want to thank you all for getting up this morning and listening to us.
I think if there are any other questions, our IR, Thomas, is there standing by. If you come up with a question during the morning after your coffee that you are burning to put forward, just get back to us. Other than that, have a marvelous Friday and a great weekend when you get around to it. Thank you for listening.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.