[Into the Stocks] From a Losing Streak Burden to a Santa Rally Treasure

Satellite Antenna Company Intellian Tech
Year-End Stock Surge from Last Year's Second Half Order Jackpot
Partner Companies Launch Low Earth Orbit Satellite Communication Services This Year
Forecasting Explosive Performance Growth

[Asia Economy Reporter Ji Yeon-jin] There is a stock that rarely demonstrated a 'Santa Rally' in the domestic stock market at the end of last year when the COVID-19 variant virus Omicron struck hard. It is Intellian Technologies, which manufactures satellite antennas. The financial investment industry expects significant growth in this year's performance as the low Earth orbit satellite antenna market begins to bloom.

Since its founding in 2004, Intellian Technologies has entered the maritime satellite antenna market, a device that enables internet access using satellites even at sea, and holds the global market share No. 1 in this field. It has also recently entered the rapidly emerging low Earth orbit satellite communication market by utilizing its core technology in satellite communication antennas.

Low Earth orbit satellite communication is used as a new communication method not only in areas where existing terrestrial communication networks cannot reach but also in places where terrestrial communication networks are already established, based on its high speed. Intellian Technologies is developing and supplying low Earth orbit satellite communication antennas in collaboration with the UK telecommunications company OneWeb. OneWeb plans to launch 648 satellites and start a service that enables internet access anywhere on Earth from this year. Expectations are rising that its role will grow as commercialization of autonomous vehicles, urban air mobility (UAM), and drones accelerates, which led the stock price to jump to 96,800 KRW intraday on January 15 last year.

Intellian Technologies' stock price underwent a long correction due to global inflation concerns, then plunged sharply after a rights offering decision, hitting a yearly low of 47,753 KRW on May 17. At that time, the rights offering was worth 79 billion KRW, with newly issued shares (7,561,338 shares) accounting for 21.27% of the total shares. However, the market recognized it as an expansion of antenna production capacity used for low Earth orbit satellite communication and research and development (R&D) to secure core technology, and the stock price recovered to the 50,000 KRW range. Nevertheless, since the third quarter of 2020, when sales declined due to the economic slowdown caused by COVID-19, the company recorded operating losses and continued the deficit streak until the second quarter of last year, limiting stock price growth and causing anxiety among investors.

However, after the disclosure of a contract to supply 'Low Earth Orbit Dual Land Terminal' worth 12 billion KRW with OneWeb, the stock price began to surge from the end of August. The stock price followed an upward curve as it consecutively secured orders from European satellite operator SES (71.1 billion KRW) on October 5 and OneWeb (89.5 billion KRW) on November 4 last year. It rose for three consecutive days from the 28th of last month, closing at 92,000 KRW on the last trading day of last year, the 30th.

Intellian Technologies is expected to achieve its highest quarterly sales with 40.9 billion KRW in the fourth quarter, a 31.2% increase compared to the same period last year, following a return to profitability in the third quarter of last year. Jung Eui-hoon, a researcher at Eugene Investment & Securities, said, "OneWeb postponed the supply timing of low Earth orbit communication services to the first half of this year due to semiconductor supply issues, so B2C (business-to-consumer) volume supply will begin from the fourth quarter. This is expected to positively affect not only Intellian Technologies' performance growth next year but also order acquisition."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.