Starlink now has four million subscribers
According to SpaceX’s CEO, Gwynne Shotwell, during testimony in a hearing before the Texas state legislative committee and confirmed by a SpaceX tweet on X, Starlink now has a total of four million subscribers.
The milestone would mean that SpaceX has gained a million new customers since the end of May alone. This outpaces the company’s already impressive rate of growth: Starlink started providing beta service of its product in October 2020; it hit 1 million subscribers in December 2022, 2 million subscribers in September 2023, and 3 million in May. The constellation now comprises nearly 6,000 satellites, with service available in nearly 100 countries to individual users as well as large enterprise customers like major airlines and cruise lines.
The service is on track to generate $6.6 billion in revenue this year — an increase from roughly $1.4 billion just two years prior, according to industry research and consulting firm Quilty Space. [emphasis mine]
With $6.6 billion in yearly revenue, in two years SpaceX will get as much from its customers as it has raised in investment capital. It essentially does not need to look for more funding, as it is now earning enough to pay for both Starlink as well as the development of Starship/Superheavy. Furthermore, at this point the company no longer needs NASA’s government funds to do anything it wants to do.
Nor are these numbers the end. Yesterday it was also reported that Air France had signed up Starlink for its airplane fleet, coming after both United and Hawaiian airlines announced they were switching to Starlink as well.
No wonder the left as well as the federal bureaucracy — dominated by top-down authoritarians who love governemnt rule — are hostile to SpaceX. It no longer needs them, and that independence threatens their power.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
According to SpaceX’s CEO, Gwynne Shotwell, during testimony in a hearing before the Texas state legislative committee and confirmed by a SpaceX tweet on X, Starlink now has a total of four million subscribers.
The milestone would mean that SpaceX has gained a million new customers since the end of May alone. This outpaces the company’s already impressive rate of growth: Starlink started providing beta service of its product in October 2020; it hit 1 million subscribers in December 2022, 2 million subscribers in September 2023, and 3 million in May. The constellation now comprises nearly 6,000 satellites, with service available in nearly 100 countries to individual users as well as large enterprise customers like major airlines and cruise lines.
The service is on track to generate $6.6 billion in revenue this year — an increase from roughly $1.4 billion just two years prior, according to industry research and consulting firm Quilty Space. [emphasis mine]
With $6.6 billion in yearly revenue, in two years SpaceX will get as much from its customers as it has raised in investment capital. It essentially does not need to look for more funding, as it is now earning enough to pay for both Starlink as well as the development of Starship/Superheavy. Furthermore, at this point the company no longer needs NASA’s government funds to do anything it wants to do.
Nor are these numbers the end. Yesterday it was also reported that Air France had signed up Starlink for its airplane fleet, coming after both United and Hawaiian airlines announced they were switching to Starlink as well.
No wonder the left as well as the federal bureaucracy — dominated by top-down authoritarians who love governemnt rule — are hostile to SpaceX. It no longer needs them, and that independence threatens their power.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
We’re with Starlink, and my wife has sold it to and installed it for some friends (no commission).
now Elon can afford to pay down the $13B Twitter debt
Completely owned by Spacex.
With Elon liking to roll profits back into the company just imagine what he can build.
He’s going to have to go public or do a dividend so investors can get their money back.
Sure would be nice if the public could invest in SpaceX by buying its publicly traded stock. But that option is not available because of the politicization of the SEC and Delaware courts by the democrat party.
I also have Starlink; I do not get the speeds claimed by some. In the past year, speed down is generally 25 – 80 Mbps, while speed up is generally 10 – 20 Mbps and latency is 25 – 55 ms.
In context, I was trying to run my rural household for a while on a 4G hotspot. Starlink definitely is better than that!
Steve White.
For us:
Download usually over 100, often over 300.
Upload 25-35
Latency 30-40.
Perhaps there’s a lot more traffic in your part of the world, but we are on a deprioritized plan.
So in 3-5 years SpaceX will have around 10,000 satellites, 10M subscribers, plus some non trivial new Direct to Cell customers (millions for global broadband, and 100s of millions for global texting I’d guess). So very soon they are looking at $15-$20B a year, and that will only continue to grow.