Final Report on the 2003 – 2007 period
The study, conducted by Vega and supported by representatives of the EO service industry , gathered information from 74 companies from an identified population of 151 companies. Further detailed financial information was gathered for 40 companies.
Highlights
· -Companies remain predominantly small (less than 10 employees) or medium (11 – 60) with only 9% of the companies classed as “large”. However, much of the innovative development is found among the large number of smaller companies.
· -Employee numbers have been growing at a rate of 6.6% annually from 2003 to 2006, with a final total number of employees estimated to be approximately 3000.
· -Revenue levels have shown a growth of just above 7% for the same 2003-2006 period while productivity has remained stable at 105k€ per member of staff, and so total value adding revenue for the industry in 2006 is estimated to be 306 M€ while profitability is typically below 10% and concentrated in a few larger companies.
· -What has changed over the period is a widening range of EO thematic services, where Land use monitoring and Cartographic & Topographic Mapping, Marine and Coastal Surveillance and Agriculture are the primary thematic areas.
· -Similarly, EO products are supplied to a wider range of market sectors and now have strong presence in Environment, Regional planning, Oil, Gas & Mining and Forestry. The largest customer group is public sector operational entities.
· -Another notable change is a shift in primary price drivers away from staff costs and competitive pricing pressures towards recognising costs of data and return on development costs.
· -The anticipated impacts of emerging market forces such as Google Earth have yet to filter through to this sector, although many report a growing awareness as a secondary result of their presence.
The full executive summary (353KB) is available for download
To access the previous 2004 report please follow this link
SOURCE ESA