Despite, or perhaps because of, the hard times being faced by commercial fleet operators, maritime VSAT services have continued to grow strongly over the past two years. The number of vessels in service has grown by over 20 per cent annually and revenues by almost 10 per cent as many fleet operators look to VSAT to support new applications which help them reduce operational costs.

Equally, the all-consuming demand for ubiquitous connectivity has led to strong growth in other maritime segments including the ocean and river cruise industry as well as yachting.

Following Inmarsat's brave and ambitious decision to invest in its next generation I-5 Global Xpress Ka-band system, further announcements from Intelsat for EpicNG, TSBc for Thor-7, O3b's forthcoming service and other regional initiatives, the next few years will bring a dramatic increase in service capabilities and connection options for vessel owners. At the same time, these projects are stimulating new developments in VSAT platforms and antenna systems.

A dramatic period of innovation has begun in the maritime VSAT industry that has already initiated a tidal wave of change which will affect customers, resellers, operators and satellite owners and fundamentally change the structure of the market.

The 3rd Edition of the COMSYS Maritime VSAT Report offers complete and detailed coverage of the maritime VSAT market following four months of intensive research and over 170 interviews with VSAT operators, MSS service providers, industry insiders, maritime experts, hardware vendors and maritime industry associations.

The report provides information on the current level of VSAT penetration into the stabilised antenna service business covering the current and prospective stabilised antenna manufacturers, market shares of the major operators, systems in use and market segmentation. Distinction is drawn between the oil and gas and maritime segments of the market.

Building on the already-extensive knowledge base within COMSYS, we have extended our maritime VSAT database with details of vessels and rigs in service with more than 130 operators worldwide. The report draws on this data to offer an unrivalled view of the how this market has developed over the past five years and the trends and demands that are driving it forward today.

150 pages containing 47 tables and 94 charts and figures provide a statistical analysis of the service market by number of vessels in service and revenues, both historically and forecast over the next five years. As always, COMSYS bases its information on primary research and builds from the ground up.

The COMSYS Maritime VSAT Report includes - Current VSAT penetration by operator and maritime segment type by number of vessels and revenues.

Competing technologies to VSAT.
Analysis of the stabilised VSAT antenna manufacturers, production, technology trends, pricing, market shares and revenues.

Size of the maritime market segmented as O and G Rigs and Platforms; High-End Commercial; Mainstream Commercial; Fishing; Leisure; Military and Government; and, Inland Waterways.

Available and addressable markets for stabilised VSAT services.

Market drivers and inhibitors.
+ The results show that the market slightly outperformed our Optimistic forecasts - our Most Likely predictions underestimated VSAT adoption by 2.8 per cent in 2010 and 6.8 per cent in 2011 whilst our Optimistic forecasts were 0.1 per cent higher in 2010 and almost exactly on target for 2011.

+ Revenue forecasts were 1.5 per cent and 4.5 per cent below actual performance for 2010 and 2011 in our Most Likely scenario with the Optimistic forecast off by -0.5 and -1.6 per cent. All in all, we believe that our predictions have been pretty close to the actual results and well within acceptable tolerances.

+ Customers have already commented on the uniqueness of The Maritime VSAT Report - there is nothing else like it. The maritime communications niche always been extremely small and specialised and was, for years,, dominated by the L-band MSS providers except in high-bandwidth or mission-critical industry segments.

+ However, from the mid-2000s VSAT services broke-out from the oil and gas, cruise and ferry sub-segments and began to be sold in the mainstream commercial, fishing and leisure segments, challenging the dominance of L-band.

The 3rd Edition of the COMSYS Maritime VSAT Report is provided in PDF form and available here.