Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) was established to meet the growing demands of broadcast and telecommunications operators in the Indian Ocean Region. In September 2006, with major shareholder Citigroup Venture Capital International (CVCI) and the financial backing of Asia Debt Management Capital (ADM Capital), ABS was able to successfully conclude the acquisition of the Lockheed Martin Intersputnik (LMI) satellite operator from Lockheed Martin. Since the acquisition, the LMI company has been renamed Asia Broadcast Satellite Limited (ABS) and the LMI-1 satellite has been renamed ABS-1 satellite.
Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) is one of the fastest growing premium satellite operators in the world. Headquartered in Bermuda, ABS serves a global customer base with representatives in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America. Led by a management team of talented and experienced professionals, ABS offers a complete range of End-to-End solutions including Direct to Home (DTH) and Cable TV distribution (CATV), Cellular Backhaul, VSAT and Internet Backbone services with diverse IP transit through its European and Asian internet gateways. ABS currently host over 175 TV channels making it as one of the fastest growing and top satellite distribution platforms and broadcaster of TV channels in the Asia Pacific.
Since the original acquisition of its flagship satellite (ABS-1) in 2006, ABS has increased its revenues by almost 500% to a fill rate of over 95% in less than 30 months. Leveraging the tremendous momentum from the successful business that it has built on ABS-1, ABS is continuing its aggressive growth by expanding its satellite fleet and business worldwide through the recent acquisitions of the Koreasat-2 satellite (renamed ABS-1A) and the Mabuhay Satellite Corporation's Agila-2 satellite (renamed Agila-2/ABS-5). ABS has also completed the procurement process for a new state-of-the-art high powered satellite, ABS-2, that is scheduled to become operational during the first half of 2012. As an expansion of capacity and in-orbit backup to ABS-1, the ABS-2 satellite will be one of the largest FSS satellites to be launched over the Eastern Hemisphere with 78 active transponders delivering over 14 kW of payload power. Together with ABS-1, the 75° East Longitude position will be the most powerful orbital location in the Asia Pacific / Indian Ocean region with over 22kW of power and expansive coverage with 122 active C, Ku and Ka-band transponders.
In addition, ABS has signed a strategic agreement with Eutelsat for a commercial cooperation at the 75°EL. EUROBIRD™ 4 satellite will be renamed W75/ABS-1B and will inject an additional eight Ku-band transponders to 75° East to address markets in the Middle East, central Asia and Russia.