Abu Dhabi’s Yahsat has announced plans to launch its third satellite, extending coverage of its satellite broadband service, YahClick, to Latin America for the first time.
The new satellite – named Al Yah 3 – will be launched in 2016.
Yahsat, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Government's strategic investment vehicle Mubadala Development, said yesterday that the new satellite would expand its Ka-band coverage – which offers satellite broadband and backhaul services for telecoms networks – to an additional 17 countries and 600 million users across Latin America and Africa.
This will include coverage for more than 95 per cent of the population in Brazil.
The YahClick broadband service, launched commercially in 2012, had 20,000 subscribers across 12 countries at the end of last year. A spokesman for the company said that its subscriber base had grown in the past six months but declined to give further details.
Yahsat’s first satellite, Y1A, was launched in April 2011, followed by Y1B a year later.
Both of the company’s satellites were built and launched by a joint venture consisting of EADS’s Astrium and Thales Alenia Space.
A company spokesman declined to comment on who would build and launch Al Yah 3, saying that an announcement would come shortly.
“Al Yah 3 marks another milestone for Yahsat, expanding our footprint to new markets and reinforcing our vision to be the global partner of choice for reliable, innovative and affordable satellite solutions,” said Yahsat’s chief executive Masood Sharif Mahmood.
“The success of both Y1A and Y1B in providing government, NGO, consumer and corporate services has given us the drive to explore new growth avenues.”
Yahsat chief commercial officer, Shawkat Ahmed, said in March that the company was considering expanding its satellite fleet.
“With the launch of Al Yah 3, we are well positioned to reach our goal of becoming a global leader in the provision of advanced satellite services,” said Homaid Al Shemmari, the chief executive of Aerospace and Engineering Services at Mubadala.
“The launch of the company’s third satellite within less than a decade of operation is a clear signal of the UAE aerospace industry’s intentions for the future.”
Yahsat said the third satellite would place it as the world’s eighth largest operator in terms of revenue.
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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
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