Kudelski posts strong full-year revenues

TV technology outfit Kudelski Group has posted strong full-year results, with a 12.3% increase in revenues driven by digital TV and its public access arm.

Kudelski posted revenues of just over CHF1 billion (€940 million) and operating profit of CHF98 million, up 20.4%.

The group said it expected to continue growing this year, although profitability will not reach the same level as 2016. It expects revenues of US$1.15-1.2 billion (€1.1-1.13 billion) and operating profit of US$60-80 million.

Digital TV revenues grew by 10.5% in 2016, reaching CHF730.2 million, and segment operating income increased by 19.3% to CHF99.4 million.

The growth was boosted by a number of new contracts, including a contract to supply conditional access for Altice USA’s 4K Ultra HD cable offering and a new multi-year contract with Canal+ covering its domestic and international services. Canal+, in addition to CA, will use the Nagra Insight analytics platform. Revenues were also boosted by the ongoing supply of CA for Dish Network in the US.

In South Africa, Sentech partnered with Nagra to launch its satellite gap filler programme in order to bring service to areas not covered by its DTT network, while DTH operator Platco switched from competition to Nagra cardless security technology for its new Openview HD service offering, which was launched in November 2016.

Nagra cross the 10 million digital cable subscribers milestone in India, while Taiwan Broadband Cable shipped close to one million OpenTV5 set-top boxes, making Tawian one fo the largest OpenTV5 deployments in Asia.

Kudelski’s other conditional access brand, Conax, signed 11 new deals in the course of the year across Europe, Latin America and India, and signed 20 additional contracts with existing customers.

Revenues in the public access segment also grew strongly, by 14.4% to CHF318.7 million.