Established Imagery Providers Face Changing Competitive Landscape

摘要

Established providers of optical Earth observation imagery looking over their shoulders at the swarm of new competitors rushing their way can ask their investors to believe growing global demand will be good for everyone, or that they can maintain their revenue base with differentiated products. Increasingly more difficult is predicting that imagery prices will not fall, and perhaps fall substantially, or that the new arrivals will collapse from a lack of funding or a viable business model. In addition to the half-dozen Earth observation constellations announced in the past two years, pockets of demand in the developing world are shrinking with every nation that decides to purchase its own high-resolution satellite for government use. Industry officials attending the World Satellite Business Week here Sept. 14-18 said Chile, Thailand and Poland are all preparing purchases of sub-1-meter-resolution optical spacecraft. Several Middle Eastern nations are also weighing purchases now that the United Arab Emirates and Morocco have ordered pairs of spacecraft.