Iridium Communications Inc. (Nasdaq:IRDM) announced the establishment of Iridium South Africa, under which Iridium has licenses to operate, provide and sell mobile satellite services (MSS) in the country. The authorization was provided by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), the regulator for the South African communications and broadcasting services. This authorization enables Iridium partners the ability to better address the growing government and commercial enterprise market demand with Iridium products, services and applications in the country.
The Iridium low-Earth orbiting (LEO) satellite constellation provides mobile voice and data communications over the entire planet, offering service where no other means of communication exists.
“Iridium has grown its commercial service revenues between 2006 and 2009 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 27 percent, primarily through the introduction of new products and services, attraction of new distribution partners, and expansion of its geographic sales reach,” said Matt Desch, CEO, Iridium.
Iridium anticipates its MSS can be utilized by the South African government to provide backup communications in urban and rural areas, and in emergency situations, as is the case in many regions of the world. Iridium’s global low-latency, two-way machine-to-machine (M2M) communications are ideal for markets such as transportation, logistics, security, oil and gas, and mining where there are requirements to deliver continuous, intelligent communications on valuable assets in real time.
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