Hello, welcome to the SES 2021 half-year results conference call for investors and analysts. My name is Jess and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. For the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, there will be the opportunity to ask questions. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question at any time. If at any point you require assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host, Richard Whiteing, to begin today's call. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining our investor and analyst results call for the half-year ended 30 June 2021. This morning's presentation was uploaded along with the press release to the investors section at ses.com if you don't already have it. As always, please note the disclaimer at the back of the presentation. In a moment, Steve Collar, CEO, will present the main business highlights, followed by Sandeep Jalan, CFO, to cover the financials in more detail. After some closing remarks from Steve, we'll be happy to take your questions, where we're also joined from the U.S. by J.P. Hemingway, CEO of SES Networks. With that, let me hand over to Steve.
Very good. Thanks, Richard, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. I'm going to be starting with page three, and our good start to 2021 has continued into the second quarter. We've delivered a solid first half in video on the back of important long-term renewals across our core neighborhoods, expanding our market leadership in high definition and good progress in consumer, all of which has contributed to an improved top-line trajectory. In networks, we've maintained revenue year-on-year in the face of the extended COVID environment. We do see good signals that the market is picking up, and government has been particularly strong through this period, growing double-digit. We continue to execute strongly in the business with a 5% year-on-year reduction in recurring operating expenses, a significant reduction in interest costs, and a reduction in net debt by almost $400 million.
Our progress through the first half means that we're on track to deliver our 2021 revenue. We've got more than 90% of our revenue outlook already signed, while later focus on reducing costs means that we're raising the low end of our adjusted EBITDA outlook. With respect to C-band, we remain fully on track to achieve the phase I clearing deadline at the end of this year and triggering the first $1 billion in accelerated relocation payments. The recent issuing of C-band licenses and the support of the major licensees to the efficient reimbursement process means that we expect to start receiving cost reimbursement in the coming months. Last but not least, we've returned EUR 275 million of cash to shareholders this year through a combination of dividend and share buyback, and this underscores our commitment to delivering sustained shareholder returns.
Turning to the key financial highlights on page four, revenue of €875 million and adjusted EBITDA of €544 million were solidly in line with our expectations. EUR 526 million in video revenue delivered reflects the improved trajectory, down 3.9% year- on- year through the 1st half versus 8% previously, and consistent with our conviction of flattening the curve over the medium- term. €349 million year to date in networks is flat year- on- year, which we're pleased with given the ongoing COVID headwinds. Cruise lines are returning to business, aviation is picking up, driven by the U.S., and we've seen increased deal flow in the last few weeks across the board. Pleasingly, the strong focus on execution and the measures implemented during our transformational Simplify & Amplify program have driven recurring CapEx down 5% year- on- year, with a corresponding increase in EBITDA margin to 62%.
Given our solid adjusted EBITDA through the first half, we're increasing the low end of our 2021 EBITDA outlook by EUR 20 million, with the range now EUR 1.08 billion to EUR 1.1 billion. Turning to page five, and on the video side, we've concluded over EUR 250 million of renewals and new business in the first half of 2021, building on the EUR 650 million of backlog signed during 2020. In Europe, we saw Sky and a number of major public broadcasters extend their business with us, particularly at 19.2 and 28.2 East, the jewels in our network and among the most valuable video neighborhoods globally. Pricing trends are flat to increasing, reflecting the value that we deliver to our customers' businesses.
Importantly, we also extended our relationship with Comcast, who serve millions of cable homes in the U.S., while also facilitating the accelerated clearing of spectrum to support the FCC process through the implementation of more efficient transmission. We talked previously about our leadership in both the total number of channels carried across the SES neighborhoods and the number of HD channels carried, and pleasingly, this leadership widened through the addition of 225 channels in high definition, up 8% year-on-year to more than 3,100 in total. Satellite remains the most efficient, reliable, and cost-effective platform for broadcasters to distribute their most valuable content to consumers around the world.
Good momentum and a positive trend in HD+ in Germany. I'll skip over that for a second to the recent launch of HD+ in Ghana, an exciting world first as SES and HD+ Ghana was the first business to transmit ultra-high definition in Africa, transmitting both semi-finals and the finals of the European Championships for HD+ subscribers in collaboration with Samsung. Exciting developments regardless of whether you are on the right or the wrong side of the result. Sticking with the theme of sports, our sports and events business is back to pre-COVID run rates and picking up nicely. Turning to page six, HD+ provides us with direct access to consumers in Germany and is an increasingly important contributor to our most valuable neighborhoods.
The business is growing again with important growth in the number of registered subscribers, while a price increase implemented earlier this year is contributing to higher year-on-year revenue. As trailed last time we spoke, we'll be expanding our HD+ portfolio over the next few months, starting with the launch of HD+ ToGo. For just an additional EUR 5 per month, HD+ subscribers will be able to take their HD+ subscription mobile with access to over 100 channels on their mobile devices using the HD+ ToGo app. The app will launch in Q4. I've already got the pre-launch version on my phone. It's pretty cool. For those interested and want to improve your German, we've included the link to the commercial in the deck.
This will be followed early next year with an IP version of HD+, and that will be accessible to the 19 million non-satellite households in Germany, substantially increasing our addressable B2C market. So much for video. We're now shifting to networks on page seven, and it's worth noting that we've been in a COVID environment now for almost 18 months. A period that's had a profound impact on cruise and aviation, and these segments for the three years prior to COVID were our fastest-growing. In that context, we're pleased with the year-on-year revenue holding firm. The standout performers, definitely the strong growth in our government business up 13%-- sorry, up 11% year-on-year on the back of strong demand from the U.S. and other governments for the multi-orbit solutions that we offer, anchored particularly with our unique O3b infrastructure.
I would note that I'm really excited by the engagement that we're seeing from governments around the world in MEO, in advance of the launch of O3b mPOWER later this year. On the fixed data side, we saw a modest contraction in the first six months, driven by expected lower volumes in the Pacific following the deployment of a number of cable systems. We continue to see growth from rural inclusion projects and continued success of broadening our relationships with Tier 1 operators, and we see that evidenced here, with our relationship with Orange and the maritime service partners that we announced yesterday. We're also excited to add AWS to our one-hop-to-the-cloud connectivity services, delivering a multi-cloud environment for our customers. Notwithstanding COVID headwinds, our mobility sector is picking up with a return to sailing for the cruise sector.
We deliver the best solutions for cruise in the industry, and with O3b mPOWER still a year away from commercial launch, we've already secured over EUR 300 million in backlog from cruise alone. We're making good progress in replicating the success in cruise across into the government sector with Navy and have a number of demonstration services ongoing across multiple naval fleets that we expect to transition onto O3b mPOWER. That's a nice segue to page eight and our view of how we see the market in networks dividing and where we believe we have a sustaining right to win with our unique multi-orbit cloud-enabled architecture. This graph shows on the x-axis increasing throughput per site and on the y-axis increasing flexibility, whether the demand is essentially fixed geographically or varies over time or location.
If we start bottom left, services such as consumer broadband and traditional VSAT need relatively small amounts of bandwidth into relatively fixed sites. This is a large market. It's actually the largest on this graph, and that's where you'll find consumer broadband and providers such as Viasat and HNS, but also where we see the LEOs focus, such as Starlink, as their architectures lend themselves towards low throughput and low mobility. We focus our efforts around high throughput and high flexibility. This is where you'll find segments such as cruise, but also important government requirements such as ISR and Navy. We're particularly strong here.
We're close enough to the Earth to solve for latency, but far enough away to allow us to deploy power and bandwidth flexibly to address the changing nature of demand in cruise, aviation, and government, as well as the higher throughputs for cell backhaul trunking and fiber restoration. We overlay this with a coherent geo fleet and create seamless interoperability between them. This will be made super powerful with the addition of O3b mPOWER 5,000 beams per satellite and terabit per second throughput. With O3b mPOWER, we're launching our second generation network before others have deployed their first, our network is designed to address the more profitable network segments with a sustaining value proposition.
To underpin this, we've signed $210 million in backlog for SES-17 and O3b mPOWER since the start of the year. Total backlog now stands at $770 million for the combination approximately a year ahead of commercial service. Finally from me on C-band, the summary is that we're fully on track. Everything remains green with respect to phase I clearing. We've completed the satellite transitions, and we're substantially through the filter installations. Phase II also remains fully on track with satellites well under construction. With the issuing of C-band licenses, we expect the reimbursement expenses to start flowing in the coming months. We continue to make excellent progress with the project that will obviously deliver substantial value for SES shareholders. With that, I'll hand over to Sandeep.
Thanks, Steve. Good morning, everybody. We are very pleased with the solid start to 2021, as shown by our first half financial results. Our revenue is fully in line with our expectations, and we are improving our adjusted EBITDA outlook for 2021 at the low end by EUR 20 million on the back of both revenue performance as well as cost reductions. Net profit is up 35% year-on-year. Net debt reduced by almost EUR 400 million , and we have also continued to bring down our financing costs significantly by about EUR 45 million per year.
We have also distributed EUR 275 million of cash to our shareholders during first half of this year, which includes EUR 94 million of share buyback, which was completed recently, and a total of 12 million A shares and FDRs, and 6 million B shares were bought back at average price of EUR 6.56 and EUR 2.62 respectively. Turning to the results in more detail, starting with adjusted EBITDA on page 11. Adjusted EBITDA for the first six months of 2021 stood at EUR 544 million and represented an improved margin of 62.2% compared to 61.4% a year ago. This reflects the combination of solid revenue performance and a 5% year-on-year reduction in OpEx with the benefit of last year's Simplify & Amplify program.
At the revenue level, video continued to deliver an improved performance, where the reduction of 3.9% year-on-year compared with -8% that we had recorded during first half of last year. This is thanks to our pricing power and our unique video neighborhoods, as well as our growing B2C business, HD+ in Germany, where we also implemented recently 7% price increase. In networks, our flat performance versus first half of last year is evidence that even in the challenging COVID environment, our unique infrastructure continues to deliver customer value, and especially in government segment, where we achieved growth of 11.3% year-on-year. This has mitigated the impact of COVID on mobility, which not surprisingly declined by about 10% year-on-year with a lag effect after a double-digit percentage growth during last year. As well as lower fixed data revenue in this period.
The long-term prospects in networks continue to remain strong, and we are very well-placed to grow thanks to our unique assets and capabilities in network, which is well set to capture the massive growth in connectivity demand and is also set to benefit as the recovery from COVID start to set in motion. I will now move to page 12, which explains the net profit bridge. Adjusted net profit for the first half of the year stood at EUR 152 million, which is an increase of 35% compared with the first half of last year, where the lower adjusted EBITDA of EUR 38 million, which includes EUR 24 million from Forex effects as explained on the previous slide, and this was more than offset by three main positives. First, depreciation and amortization was lower by about EUR 32 million or 9% year-on-year.
Second, I'm very pleased with the progress we are making to reduce our cash cost of financing. The refinancing actions contributed to an interest expense reduction of EUR 15 million in first half P&L and our about EUR 30 million annualized, which is about 20% reduction compared to first half of last year. By the way, this represents only the savings in the cost of our senior debts. On top, there are also tangible cash cost savings of about EUR 15 million per year from the recent tender of our 2022 hybrid bonds, with a combination of new hybrid EUR 625 million and a tap of our Euro bonds 2026 for EUR 150 million. Which was done at our historically lowest ever cost of 0.21%.
This savings, EUR 30 million plus EUR 15 million respective, they really expand our free cash flow generation potential of the company significantly for the benefit of our shareholders. The third main positive comes from the Forex gain of EUR 20 million compared with a loss of EUR 12 million in the prior period. This Forex gain is mainly linked to certain intercompany non-euro denominated flows. Reported net income of EUR 137 million for first half of this year compares to EUR 86 million in first half of last year and includes a few exceptional items. These comprise restructuring charge of EUR 6 million and net C-band charges of EUR 12 million and related tax benefits on these exceptional charges. This is fully in line with our guidance. Our reported earning per share was also higher than prior period at EUR 0.25.
Turning now to the balance sheet on page 13. Our continued strong focus on free cash flow generation led to the adjusted net debt being reduced by about EUR 400 million or about -10% compared to 30th June, 2020. At the same time, as I mentioned earlier, we have also reduced our average cost of financing from 3.5% to 2.8%, which is about 20% reduction with the benefit and cash annual cost of about EUR 45 million, as I explained earlier. This expands the free cash flow generation potential. As shown by the chart on the right, our weighted average debt maturity profile is very healthy at an average of 7.6 years. You can note that there is no significant senior bond maturities coming due over the next two years. Moving to the CapEx forecast on page 14. This is totally unchanged.
Our robust cash flows will be able to support the growth investment of 2021 and 2022 with no major financing needs. After the growth CapEx peak of this year and next for SES-17 and O3b mPOWER, our cash flows will not only benefit from the growing revenues and EBITDA generated by these highly differentiated assets, but also from the significantly lower level of CapEx needs beyond 2022, which is set around EUR 375 million per year during the period from 2023 to 2025. More importantly, after this investment peak cycle of EUR 2.67 billion, we would have completed most of our growth investments and major satellite replacements, meaning that we will then enter a sustained period of limited CapEx and higher free cash flow generation. Turning now to the financial outlook on page 15.
We are on track and continue to expect 2021 group revenue to be between EUR 1.76 billion-EUR 1.82 billion, of which more than 90% has now already been contracted. Our focus is to continue to execute across the business and deliver the growth in group revenues between first half of the year and second half. That is implied in our outlook, where we expect some reduction in video during quarter three and quarter four to be offset by new wins in network. With revenue on track and our solid performance in reducing year-on-year OpEx, we are also raising the low end of our adjusted EBITDA outlook by about EUR 20 million. Our 2021 revised outlook EBITDA now stands at EUR 1.08 billion up to EUR 1.1 billion. Positive developments continue also on C-band front.
The reimbursement process is now set in motion with the issuance of licenses by FCC, as well as clearing house being in place with a defined reimbursement process. Billing statements have been submitted to clearing house for reimbursement, which we'll expect to start and receive the monies within this year. We are well set to the first clearing milestone later this year, which will allow us to receive the first proceeds of $1 billion, which will be fully utilized to strengthen the balance sheet. With this now, hand back to Steve to conclude.
Very good. Thanks, Sandeep. I will end on page 17. This is a slide that we showed last quarter, and it provides a picture of how we expect our business to develop in the coming years as we continue to flatten the curve in video and launch SES-17 and O3b mPOWER to support networks growth. We'll see top line and EBITDA growth coming through from 2023, while beyond our investment peak next year, we'll be in a sustaining low CapEx environment. This will allow the business to drive strong cash flows on a sustaining basis, augmented by $3 billion in accelerated clearing proceeds in late 2023, all of which focused on driving substantial value for SES shareholders. With that, Richard, I think we're ready for questions.
Great. Thanks, Steve. Yeah, go ahead, operator.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star onr on your telephone keypad. Please ensure your line is unmuted locally, as you will be advised when to ask your question. Once again, that's star one if you would like to ask a question. The 1st question comes from the line of Sami Kassab from Exane. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gentlemen. Good morning, everyone. A few questions, please to start. What is driving the growth in international video markets? Can you elaborate on that please, Steve? Is it pricing? Is it volume going up? Do you think video revenue growth in these emerging markets is sustainable over the next two to three years? Or is it more due to a specific contract renewal that you're seeing growth in 2021? Secondly, what's the outlook for fixed data? When do you expect it to return to growth, please? Lastly, can you provide an update on the revenue impact you expect from the QuetzSat satellite renewal? Thank you.
Great. Thanks, Sami. Yeah, growth in international markets in video, I would say, we're doing well in Africa, we're making good progress in Africa. We have built a neighborhood in Ethiopia at 57 East, that's kind of an important neighborhood for the future. I would say Asia continues to be a good market for us, supported by what you probably saw a couple of days ago, a strong renewal in India to support the significant business that we have there. I would say Asia continues to be, again, a good market where we've seen some good renewals and also a little bit of new business coming from the Asia market. I would say, we're relatively modest in our expectations for growth in the emerging markets. We do have some promising developments also in Latin America, where we see a little bit of progress.
I would say our expectations are still relatively modest. Yeah, what is there, we definitely expect to be sustaining. I'll hand to J.P. in a second on fixed data just to cover the QuetzSat question. Yeah, we have a renewal coming up on QuetzSat towards the end of this year. Won't say too much about it, but I think as we have discussed before with Ciel and QuetzSat and the relationship with EchoStar, I think we see that declining over time. Nevertheless, we have some very nice business on QuetzSat in Mexico, which we expect to extend for the long term. J.P., on fixed data.
Yes, Steve. Sure. Good morning, everybody, and good morning, Sami. On fixed data, obviously looking back to 2020, we actually had a really solid performance that actually exceeded our expectations. In 2021, so far we've been seeing a really sort of mixed trend among the regions. Some really, really solid performance in the Americas and Asia, and some softness that we knew would be in place in the Pacific region, as Steve mentioned, around where some of the submarine cables are coming to some of the island territories that we've had for many years. We expect that sort of mixed performance across the regions to continue through the remainder of this year. Some over-performance in those strong regions and managing the softness in the other regions.
We would expect the real performance to pick up in fixed data as we get the fantastic new assets that we have coming to market in 2022 and beyond, where we really get to leverage the SES-17 and O3b mPOWER, which provide fantastic capabilities for the fixed data market.
Thank you very much, gentlemen.
Thanks.
The next question comes from the line of Aleksander Peterc from Societe Generale. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. I have three. One is on your guidance upgrade. If you could clarify what is driving your EBITDA to upgrade precisely. Is it more cost cutting, so better savings? Or is the better mix with the video tracking slightly stronger and networks a bit weaker so far this year than you were modeling originally? Then the two questions on the divisions. Just in video, if you could remind us what is the proportion of HD+ in your video revenue base. On networks, I'd just like to understand if the midpoint of your guidance range is still realistic.
If I calculate it right, compared to first half of this year, as Steve talked about. On the other hand, in Networks, we continue to expect revenues to grow, as J.P. was just talking about. This mix overall, we expect our revenues to continue to grow. That's first plus for second half of the year. Second, we are continuing to perform well on the cost reduction front. We are putting a laser focus across our businesses in terms of cost attention. Also, making sure that this ramp-up of Simplify & Amplify program gains are continuing to ramp up. We see pretty decent progress, as you can see in our results for first half of this year. This program was launched just one year back, and we can already see a good, decent ramp-up in these gains.
The COVID-related savings that we had last year, they will continue to go down. Clearly the mix is that cost savings continue on track, revenue will continue to grow, with this, we feel pretty confident to upgrade the guidance for the full- year. First half of the year, EBITDA was EUR 545 million. You can see that from the full-year guidance. The second half, despite the revenue growth, we are implying an EBITDA at the midpoint range of very similar magnitude.
Great. Thanks, Sandeep. On HD+, from a revenue standpoint, it's about EUR 120 million. It's sort of nicely profitable, positive momentum. I mentioned the new products that we're gonna be launching. Very important part of the overall 19.2 neighborhood and the German business. Good prospects for HD+ in Germany going forward. Look on guidance, don't want to get too far into sort of high end, low end. We obviously give a range for a reason. I would say on the video side, we're obviously tracking more towards the top end. I think on the network side, we're obviously tracking more towards the lower end, and that probably just reflects the fact that COVID has gone a little bit longer than we would've liked. I think probably to be higher, we would've needed a faster recovery. We are where we are.
On the overall revenue, I think we feel very comfortable, and obviously with the upgrade on the adjusted EBITDA, gives you a view of where we expect to end up in the very important adjusted EBITDA neighborhood. With that, Aleksander, hopefully we answer your questions.
Brilliant. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Giles Thorne from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thank you. My first question is on video. We've now got the Sky Q via IP product launched in Germany, which looks and feels very similar to the same products launched in the U.K. and Italy. There is some commentary that Sky Deutschland will be, I don't know if they're incentivizing, but they're certainly allowing existing Sky customers over cable and satellite to move to the IP product. I guess it would be useful, Steve, to hear your comment on how you see Germany evolving over the next three years when it comes to distribution of video content. Second question is back to J.P. and the comment around submarine cables coming to certain islands. This is stimulating a memory at the back of my head around the early O3b contract wins with customers out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Can you confirm that it's that business that you're losing to submarine cable? My third question is back to video and HD+. As I remember it, HD+ was a very market-specific and very elegant solution to the distribution of HD in Germany. I suppose each market is different, but my broad question is, where can you see such a similar We've got the Ghana news now, but where else could you see this model as being relevant to the overall cultivation of HD in other markets that you're in? Thank you.
Great. Thanks, Giles. Yeah, look, I'm super optimistic about Germany in general. If you look at the overall market, 36 million TV households, half of which are satellite households, the other half approximately are non-satellite households. In the 17, 18 million that we serve over satellite, we've got this very rich and diverse broadcast market with very strong public broadcasters, with a significant mandate to carry well-liked content for everyone in the country. Two very strong commercial broadcasters in RTL and ProSieben, Sky, obviously, the pay TV platform, and then also our own HD+ B2C service. Really robust and interesting market. You touched on Sky. I think, look, Sky reflects. First of all, Sky, a fantastic example, I think, in the broadcast industry of a business that has evolved itself into the hybrid environment and developed great technology with Sky Q.
They're a very strong partner for us. We really like what they're doing, sort of hybridizing their environments. Satellite is the key enabler of that hybrid environment, both in the U.K. and in Germany. I think what they're doing is extending their attractiveness in the market, and that can only be very good news for SES. Indeed, reflects what we're doing with HD+. You mentioned there's some parallels there. I sort of agree. I really like the mobile app that we're launching in Germany, and I think we're learning a ton through the sort of delivering B2C services, and I think that will also serve well as we think about additional services, whether that be audience measurement or others that we can introduce as we have a direct touch to consumer. With 2 million consumers on HD+, I think that bodes very well.
I'm optimistic about Germany, and I think we've got some really interesting things to say in that market, and I actually very positive about the developments with Sky. To take your third question on HD+ in other markets. What would the conditions need to be for HD+ in other markets? I think firstly, a strong free-to-air neighborhood, which is definitely the case in Ghana. Value add that we can deliver through, in particular, the integration of our operator app into TVs, and that's something we've also successfully achieved in Ghana, particularly with the partnership with Samsung. If you buy a Samsung TV in Ghana, much like in Germany, it comes with HD+ installed as an operator app, and that makes the root to HD+ a very simple one. I think there are other markets where we think HD+ could be relevant.
I think, like I said, we've learned an awful lot, and we've developed a lot of technology through delivery of services in Germany with HD+, and I think that consumer interface, if you think about other businesses in other industries that are growing and growing fast, it's really they grow on the back of a strong consumer interface, and that's something that we will continue to think about within our video business. With that, J.P., maybe take the question on the Pacific.
Yes, that's on the Pacific Islands, Giles. It is the connectivity that we have been providing to those island nations, and it has been a fantastic market and remains a very good market for us in the Pacific region. If you recall, we were effectively being the primary internet connection service and 4G enabler for those islands, and we continue to be so for many of them. Some of those island nations have had one, two, or even three submarine cables come to those islands. We've tended to shift to more of a resilient support mechanism to those islands over time, and some of them have reduced their token capacity as a result. As I say, in other islands, we still remain the primary internet and primary connection for 4G.
What's really interesting is around mPOWER. We're in advanced conversations with a number of the Pacific Island nations to provide mPOWER to some of what they call the outer islands, given the lower cost terminals and more flexibility that we have, so we can distribute the internet and distribute the 4G backhaul into more of the island nations that we have. There's really good potential there, and actually really interesting opportunities to do submarine cable restoration in and around those nations, given the super high throughput that mPOWER enables, that we can get up to gigabits and 10 Gb of restoration, what makes us very relevant in that market going forward. Expect to see some good growth in the future.
Understood. Thanks a lot, guys.
The next question comes from the line of Nick Dempsey from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. I've got three left. First one, what could potentially delay you or derail you in your 2023 deadline for C-band clearing? How reliant are you on what others are doing and whether they stick to their time frames for that deadline? Second question, in terms of the backlog for mPOWER and SES-17, I listened, I appreciate that government won't commit ahead of a launch. We know that from the past. Can you give us any color on the kind of scale of business with government that you've been discussing so that we can fill in the imaginary sort of backlog from government. The third question, you already answered, Sami, on QuetzSat, but what other factors are there in the second half of 2021 that are likely to make video organic revenue growth year-on-year worse in that period than first half?
Thanks, Nick. C-band 2023, look, we continue to make really, really good progress. The 2023 for us is about launching satellites and sort of reinvigorating the neighborhoods with those satellites. It's really going very well. We've got six satellites under manufacture with three different manufacturers, three different launch vehicles. We've really, de-risked, I would say, the program completely. We've got a lot of margin in the schedule. We're learning a lot through the deployments, obviously, in phase I in terms of customer clearing. I think we feel like we can probably go even a little bit quicker in the second phase as a result of that. Yeah, nothing but good things to say, to be honest, Nick. It's still a little bit away. It's a complex series of transitions. We're working very hard with our customers to make sure that they feel supported.
The renewal with Comcast was very important, both from the perspective of phase I and phase II, so it's really, really good to see that. Yeah, always wanna stay fairly humble around this thing because it's obviously a very important program for us, but hard to imagine that it could be going better at this point in time with respect to clearing. On the second half in video, yeah, look, we've had a very good first half. We knew that there was gonna be a little bit of sort of positive tailwinds, with some business that we signed in Germany, a little bit of business also in the U.S. ahead of some of the C-band transition. We get a bit less of that in the U.S. with the sort of the transitions completed and with some more efficient coding and modulation.
I'd say probably that's the one thing I'd point to, Nick, is U.S. video in the second half will probably come off a little bit. Like I said, I think we're happy with the performance of the video business trending towards the high end, and that's our expectation for the second half. Then, J.P., do you want to take the question on government? I don't think we're gonna be tracking imaginary backlog as a metric, Nick, going forward, but J.P. can certainly take the question on where we are with government.
Yes, Nick. As Steve says, we won't be sort of articulating what orders may be that we haven't received an imaginary backlog, but I get the point of your question. I guess if you look to the past as any measure of the future, you look at the contract that we had with the U.S. government, which had a blanket purchase agreement in excess of $500 million because they recognized the differentiation and importance of MEO, and obviously what mPOWER does is obviously take that to the next level. Certainly wouldn't like to draw extrapolations from that too much, but that's certainly a measure of the importance that MEO has had, and all the indications are that the MEO enables more that we previously had based on more applications enabled with the flexibility and scale of O3b mPOWER.
Thank you, guys. That's helpful.
Thanks, Nick.
There are no further questions in the queue, so I'll hand the call back to your host for some closing remarks.
Very good. Thanks very much, everyone. Really appreciate you joining us. Happy with the results to date and look forward to talking to you all, in Q3. Thanks a lot.
Thanks, everybody.
Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your lines.