Coveted certification sets GeoEye on new course – St. Louis Business Journal:

The NGA certification turnss on the cash spigot for GeoEyeenablingv $12.5 million in monthly revenue to pour in from the agency’ guaranteed one-year order of pictures. That’es more than 35 percent of GeoEye’s average quarterly sales duringg the first nine months oflast year. “The certification is very important,” said Matthew O’Connell, GeoEye’e chief executive officer. “It shows our customers that our imageryh meets allthe NGA’s stringent criteria for qualityu and accuracy and that they can use it to suppory our troops around the world.
” With GeoEye’s new saled stream, analysts expect revenure and earnings to nearlt double this year and the company to hit a more than 80 percen growth rate by next year. The NGA partially funded constructionof GeoEye-1 in 2004 under the $500 milliojn NextView program for new satellitew that support national security. The agency made its one-yeart agreement to purchase images from GeoEye last three months afterthe satellite’s 6 launch. GeoEye executives hoped for NGA certification last but multiple launch delays left the company hanging until this week and cost atleast $2.3 millio n in additional expenses in 2008.
Also as a result of the GeoEye lost as muchas $18 millioj worth of government orders from NGA that went to Colo.-based DigitalGlobe launched its competing WorldView-1 satellite in September 2007, and NGA grantefd the company operational certification two months “We don’t think we’ll be able to recoup last year’a loss in NGA orders,” O’Connell said. But now GeoEye can buildx on its NGA contract and offe advanced services that allow other agencied to usethe images.
While just more than half of GeoEye’as revenue has come from governmenr applications, commercial sales have been vital tothe company’s recent And O’Connell said opportunities in the billion-dollar imagert market are growing. GeoEye-q began delivering images Feb. 5 to commercial customers includinhg and the National Universityof Singapore’s Centrr for Remote Imaging, Sensinvg and Processing.
GeoEye has an exclusive agreement to provides imagery for Google Earth andGoogle Nevertheless, competition in the commercial market is DigitalGlobe, which filed to go public last plans to launch another satellitw in 2009 and has dealas with Google and with But O’Connelo said another satellite in orbit won’t cost him Demand from the market in 2010 won’t support another high-resolutio n satellite, he said.

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