I'm Austin Moeller. I'm the aerospace and defense technology analyst here at Canaccord Genuity. Today, we are joined by Gil Benyamini and Adi Sfadia from Gilat. I know you have a presentation that you want to go through just to give everyone a brief overview of the business. I'll let you kick it off.
Thank you, Austin. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning. I'm Gil Benyamini. I'm Gilat's CFO, and together with me, Adi Sfadia, who will join us later for some Q&A. Let's start. Gilat.
Sorry.
This?
Yeah.
Okay.
Thanks.
Gilat is providing connectivity using satellite basement. We don't build satellite, we don't own satellite. We provide the solutions and the product that enable the transformation of data to and from the satellite, and we do it for both commercial and defense uses. Our products and solutions include the data centers, the main platforms, and the hubs, which are the main servers. It includes the end user terminals, usually include the antenna, modem, receiver, and transceiver. It includes aero terminals, which enable you as passenger to use Wi-Fi, and to have connectivity during flights. We're also providing amplifiers and some more products, which I'll touch later. You can see here on the top right, the main applications and markets that we serve, starting from in-flight connectivity, cellular backhauling, which is connecting the cellular antenna through satellite to the network. Land mobility, mainly trains, maritime, LEO gateway equipment.
A lot of defense uses, this is one of our main markets. Government and enterprise solutions and digital inclusion, which is connecting rural communities and providing projects like e-learning, and so on, to third world countries. We have today 1,200 employees. Soon, we're about to grow to about 1,700. I'll talk about an acquisition that we're doing. We were founded 40 years ago, and we're dually traded on Nasdaq and in the Tel Aviv. We're a global company with sales offices and R&D centers around the world. We operate in three business segments. The Gilat Defense provides secure rapid deployment solutions for military organizations, government, and so on. The main focus today is on U.S., main customer is the U.S. DoD, and of course, we provide it to other countries as well. Gilat Commercial serves mainly broadband, satellite communication networks around the globe.
Main market is the in-flight connectivity and other applications that I touched. Gilat Peru is a bit different business, focused on both terrestrial and satellite-based solutions, and it's always around the triangle of communication, technology, government, and rural communities. A few words about our customers and the value chain. We usually divide the customers into four main groups. The first and probably most largest one is satellite operators. These are the owners of the satellites, companies like SES, JSAT, Eutelsat, and so on. The second group would be service providers and MNOs, and you can see here a lot of logos that we serve around the globe. The third group would be system integrators. These are large players like Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and so on, that use our solution as part of a larger one. This is mostly applicable with governments and defense, but not only.
In some of the projects, we are serving as the integrator. The fourth group would be government and defense agencies. You can see here some names. As I mentioned before, the main focus is on the U.S. and specifically on the U.S. DoD. Of course, we're working in Israel and in many other countries. Value chain. On one end of the value chain, we have the satellite manufacturers. These are the Boeings and Thales and Airbuses of the world that manufacture the satellite and provide it to the operator, the first group of customers that I mentioned in the previous slide. The satellite operators would monetize the satellite capacity by selling it to the service providers, the second group, and they would provide services using satellite capacity to the end users.
That could be consumer, it could be a defense agency, it could be an airline, and so on. We're here in the middle. We provide our solutions both to the operators, the satellite operators, and to the service providers. Today, our main revenues are coming from the satellite operators buying the main platforms and so on. The service providers would usually buy end user terminals, but it could be in different ways of doing business as well. We're here in the middle of the junction within this value chain, and as I said, our equipment and solutions enable the transformation in data to and from the satellite. Going to the bottom line, the more capacity or the more data transferred to and from the satellites, the more revenues we have at the end of the day.
There are two mega trends that are moving this market, that used to be, in the past, a niche market, and today it's a core component of any telecommunication system. One is the availability of capacity. The satellites became huge in terms of capacity, whether it's GEO satellites with hundreds of beams or whether it's availability of LEO constellations. This is on one hand. On the other hand, the launching costs decreased dramatically. By saying dramatically, I mean by about 90%. The whole use case of satellite connectivity changed dramatically in the last decade. Going forward, you can see the TAM graph that shows that it's going to grow even further. We as Gilat, we focus on three main areas. One is the VHTS and NGSO, very high throughput satellite and non-geostationary orbits. I'll touch it in a slide.
LEO is the main focus for the future. In the markets within it, we have two markets. One is the IFC, the in-flight connectivity, fast-growing market. Highly regulated, highly technologized, and these are our main advantages. This is why we focus over there. The defense market, which is a fast-growing market. This is our third focus area, and I will touch each of them. A few words about the capacity in orbits. GEO, geostationary orbit, the satellite is always fixed above a certain point on Earth. This is where the majority of our legacy customers are acting at. MEO, mid-earth orbit, altitude of 2,000 to 10,000 km, less latency. Today, there is one relevant constellation for telecommunication of SES called O3b mPOWER, and we are the sole provider of equipment for this constellation. LEO, which is the hottest name today.
Currently, there are two active constellations, Starlink and OneWeb. Starlink is a closed garden. For OneWeb, we provide amplifiers for their gateways. IRIS² is a European initiatives with about $12 billion budget that was initiated about a year ago. Here, the Europeans want to have sovereign constellation, this is a trend in this market, and to control their destiny and using European-related IP. Gilat, with our European subsidiaries, is participating in RFPs in this project, and this is a very big opportunity for us. We also work with Amazon's gateway, and there are many more constellations to come. This is a very big opportunity for us. How we do the trick? Our main platform is called SkyEdge IV. It was launched a couple of years ago. The main idea here was to serve very high throughput satellite and multi-orbit constellations.
As you can see on the right, it serves a variety of applications. One of the most important things of it is that it is much more software-oriented. Usually when a constellation is launched, you have X amount of ground equipment deployed, and then when you want to grow, you needed to add more hubs, more hardware. With the SkyEdge IV, you add mainly more software licenses. On one hand, it is much more profitable for us. On the other end, it is much more easier for the customer. It was designed to support future trends like virtualization, 5G NTN, cloud, and so on. A few words about the commercial markets. You can see here the markets that we are active at. I will speak about the IFC in the next slide. In maritime, it is mainly cruise ships, digital inclusion, enterprise solutions.
You can see the verticals, retail, energy, and so on. I spoke about the cellular backhaul link, and let us speak about the IFC. Today, this is our main vertical. About $200 million of revenues are coming from the IFC. We provide all kinds of equipment, starting from the equipment which is on the ground, mainly the SkyEdge IV. We have modems, aero modems. We have transceivers and amplifiers for Honeywell, Anuvu, Safran, and we provide additional auxiliary equipment. I would say that the main revenue driver is the aero antennas. About a year and a half ago, we acquired a company called Stellar Blu that provide an ESA electronically steerable antenna. Currently deployed on more than 700 airplanes. On top of that, we have the yellow antenna on the right, which is a smaller antenna, mainly for LEO, a LEO-only antenna.
Both antennas are serving commercial and defense users. You can see here some logos of airlines that we work with. Currently, about 4,000 aircraft are deployed with our equipment. Shifting gear to defense. The nice thing is that I don't have to explain why defense and satellites are working together. With all the geopolitical tensions and the trends that I described before, you see more and more budgets going towards satellites in the defense market. You can see some numbers only in the U.S., about $40 billion, and these are numbers from two years ago. I guess that they are much higher today. We see a lot of technology coming from the commercial side to the defense side with the relevant adjustments.
We've made an acquisition of a company called DataPath about three years ago here in the U.S., and this gave us a big boost to about $100 million of revenues last year. About six weeks ago, we announced the acquisition of Comtech, a U.S.-based company that focuses on the defense. It also has some commercial revenues, but out of the $200 million revenues, the majority of it is coming from defense, and this will take us to the $300 million area, with a much larger focus on defense, which is the fastest-growing market that we active at. A few metrics. It's a $157 million consideration, all in cash. About 440 employees, $200 million revenue, $17 million of Adjusted EBITDA. I would say that this is mainly an additive deal for Gilat. Most of the technologies and markets are additive. We do TDMA modems, mainly they do SCPC.
I'll not get into technology, but this captures large parts of the market. This is just an example. We also get into adjacent markets, new adjacent markets like troposcatters that allows beyond line of sight terrestrial communication, and space component markets and so on, and we're very excited about it. A few words about Peru. As I said, in Peru, we provide both terrestrial and satellite-based solutions, mainly to rural communities with the government. We won six out of 20 regional bids about 10 years ago, and currently serving these areas. We constructed it, and now we're serving it in about $600 million-ish, $600 million-$700 million contract. On top of that, we provide another value-added services. Peru's most revenues are recurring about $60 million a year, with a lot of potential to grow. Just a few financial highlights.
We just released Q2, $122 million in revenues this quarter, 17% growth, and EBITDA of 15.431% growth. We expect to end the year at around $500 million-$520 million of revenues, 13% growth, and EBITDA growth of 19%. This sums up my presentation and overview. I think that we're at the right place at the right time, with very interesting opportunities on the way. VHTS and NGSO markets are opening. Defense market is rocking these days. We have the right technology. We have the right people. We made a very exciting acquisition that is going to take us even further to the $700 million area with a lot of potential, and we're very excited of the future. We can move on to Q&As.
Thank you, Gil. I was wondering if you could talk about the recent contract with the Department of Defense and some of the customized satcom terminals that Gilat DataPath is providing to the military for a tactical perspective.
Sure. I will give slight history. When I joined Gilat in 2015, we decided to abandon the defense area because back then, Obama administration reduced budget. Gilat was losing money, and when you lose money and you need to cut expenses, you cut the business that does not provide any profitability. In 2023, we acquired DataPath, a company that did around $40 million revenues, breakeven EBITDA. We expect them to do today slightly below $100 million with a significant EBITDA.
What they are doing, DataPath is a specialized integrator in the satellite communication area. They are building portable and transportable solutions. Basically, it is a portable gateway or mobile gateway. Now every time we see that there is a crisis in the Middle East, and for example, Iran bombed one of the American's stationary gateways, we are getting orders to replace those stationary gateways with mobile gateways. In addition, they have other mobile solutions, mainly on the post, for special units that can deploy their units in the field. Recently, we are getting more and more orders to fulfill the DoD needs, mainly because of the Epic Fury war. But we also see a lot of orders around the world, a lot of requests for information and Request for Proposals, especially in Europe because of the Ukraine-Russia war.
We also made decent success in Israel, selling DataPath products into the Israeli army.
I would like to add, one of the most exciting things about these transportables, that they are here for many years, and we see new technologies entering through it, like optical ground systems, like multi-orbit capabilities, and earth observation capabilities, and so on. A lot of potential here as well.
Awesome. Can we talk about the $43 million in new orders for Sidewinder in-flight connectivity terminals and the commercial and enterprise demand for both OEM line-fit and retrofit on those aircraft?
Sure. The $43 million order is an expansion of a following order from one of our lead IFC, in-flight connectivity, customers. We mainly work with SES and Panasonic on the terminal side. We provide also for SES, the global connectivity, the gateways, and the networking equipment. We also work with other companies like Gogo and Honeywell and provide to some of them auxiliary, and to some of them, electronically steered antenna. The order came from one of the big ones, and it is mainly to cover additional retrofit backlog that he needs to fulfill in the next two years, and also a line-fit. Line-fit is the Holy Grail of the IFC, where you get orders, but basically once you are in Boeing or in Airbus, you will continue to get orders for 10 and 15 years later.
Because when you order the antenna, when you order the aircraft, and you get follow-on orders for a long period of time, those orders are much more profitable than the retrofit because it requires slightly additional hardware from our perspective. So more expensive and slightly higher profitability.
Can you talk about some of the advantages of your Viper Ka-band electronically steered antennas and what they provide for persistent connectivity on drones?
Sure. Recently we announced in Eurosatory, a new electronically steered antenna for Ka-band. It's a relatively low-profile antenna. The main use case is for small and medium UAVs, for both surveillance, ISR, and connectivity to the UAV. It has a low SWaP, size, weight, and power, less than 4 kilos, height of less than 7 cm, less than 2 inches. It's a demonstration right now, and we are working with customers to customize the solution to their specific needs. At the end, each UAV will require a different configuration. We have one unit that is working, demonstrate to customers. We see very nice response from the industry.
Do I have any questions from the audience?
Yeah.
[inaudible] manufacturing component sourcing. Have you seen any [inaudible]
I think, from COVID, every year there is a different story. Recently, we see some pressure from the memory chipset. But generally speaking, we have enough inventory, and when we need, we juggle, we know how to buy it. And when we believe there is a risk, we buy ahead of time. So we take some inventory risk. We are very conservative in our inventory management. But in the last few years, you stop working right in time and build for inventory. So we have enough inventory for the coming few quarters.
Excellent. Well, I think we're at the end of our time, but I just want to thank you again, Adi and Gil, for coming to talk to us about the latest developments at Gilat.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.