SES Celebrates Fifth Spring in Georgia

Leading Satellite Operator, SES, celebrated its fifth year of successful operations in the Georgian market with a reception held at Hotel Museum in Tbilisi on March 28 with representatives from leading media, communication and business companies, the opening speeches were made by Mr. Håkan Sjödin, Vice President of Sales Nordic, Baltic and Eastern Europe at SES, and Nikoloz Davitashvili, Chief Commercial Officer at Magticom.

SES is the world-leading satellite operator and the first to deliver a differentiated and scalable GEO-MEO offering worldwide, with more than 50 satellites in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) and 12 in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO). SES focuses on value-added, end-to-end solutions in four key market verticals (Video, Enterprise, Mobility and Government). It provides satellite communications services to broadcasters, content and Internet service providers, mobile and fixed network operators, governments and institutions, and businesses worldwide.

SES’s portfolio includes the ASTRA satellite system, which has the largest Direct-to-Home (DTH) television reach in Europe, and O3b Networks, a global managed data communications service provider.

In his opening speech Mr. Håkan Sjödin gave an overview of the company’s activities, its achievements and plans for the future. Mr.Sjödin noted that SES owns 65 satellites covering 99% of the globe and world population, while serving over 700 telecommunication companies, broadcasters, enterprises, governments and institutions in over 130 countries worldwide, having 7, 317 TV channels, 2,434 from which are HD and 34 are UHD. According to Sjödin SES is number 1 DTH platform provider with 156 million TV households reached globally and it continues to move forward the development of HDR (High Dynamic Range), as part of Ultra HD phase 2.

The SES company representative then went on discussing the global trends, noting that UHD TV market is rapidly changing and according to the forecast UHD will account for 42% of global TV sales in 2018. In his presentation he also noted that by the year of 2025, the total number of UHD Channels carried via satellite will surpass 1,000.

Mr. Håkan Sjödin pointed out that the global trend of UHD development is also seen in Georgia. It’s been said, that compared to 2015 when 18% of population was aware of UHD, but didn’t have UHD screen and 8% were both aware and in possession of a UHD screen, 2016 shows the growth in both categories of population, with already 22% aware of UHD screen and 15% already owning these types of screens.

Nikoloz Davitashvili, Chief Commercial Officer at Magticom congratulated SES on its fifth year of successful operations in Georgia and gave a detailed presentation about the services Magticom provides to its clients from Internet and mobile to IPTV and Satellite television, the Satellite TV services being provided by SES. Davitashvili noted that through its renewed TV platform and content, together with a new simplified menu Magticom offers 50 new popular TV channels as well its own branded TV channels to the viewers available through satellite even in remote areas of the country. Davitashvili then spoke about the company’s plans to expand to the main cities with optical-fibrous cables as well as provide customers all available products by satellite.

By Nino Gugunishvili