Starlink revenue in 2024 estimated at $6.6 billion
According to an independent analysis of the state of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, the company will generate $6.6 billion in revenue in 2024.
The independent analysis was done by the market research firm Quilty, and was based largely on extrapolating out from Starlink’s 2.7 million known subscribers.
“We’re projecting a revenue jump from $1.4 billion in 2022 to $6.6 billion in 2024.”
To put that in perspective, the combined revenue of the two largest geostationary satellite operators, SES and Intelsat, which recently announced a merger, is around $4.1 billion. “The answer lies in their subscriber base,” explained Quilty. Viasat and Hughes, two dominant players in the consumer GEO satellite internet market for over 20 years, peaked at a combined 2.2 million subscribers in 2020. Starlink surpassed that number in just a few years, he said.
The financial outlook is equally impressive. Quilty Space estimates Starlink’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes,depreciation, and amortization) to reach $3.8 billion in 2024, a significant leap from negative $128 million in 2022.”We expect Starlink to achieve positive free cash flow for the first time in 2024,” said Quilty.
This revenue number is even more astonishing when you compare it with the $12 billion in private capital the company has raised from investors since 2017. Next year alone SpaceX’s returns will cover half that investment, practically guaranteeing a generous profit in the coming years for those investors.
Even more significant, these revenues mean SpaceX now has a very healthy cash stream for completing construction of Starship/Superheavy, or in fact practically anything the company decides to build.
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According to an independent analysis of the state of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, the company will generate $6.6 billion in revenue in 2024.
The independent analysis was done by the market research firm Quilty, and was based largely on extrapolating out from Starlink’s 2.7 million known subscribers.
“We’re projecting a revenue jump from $1.4 billion in 2022 to $6.6 billion in 2024.”
To put that in perspective, the combined revenue of the two largest geostationary satellite operators, SES and Intelsat, which recently announced a merger, is around $4.1 billion. “The answer lies in their subscriber base,” explained Quilty. Viasat and Hughes, two dominant players in the consumer GEO satellite internet market for over 20 years, peaked at a combined 2.2 million subscribers in 2020. Starlink surpassed that number in just a few years, he said.
The financial outlook is equally impressive. Quilty Space estimates Starlink’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes,depreciation, and amortization) to reach $3.8 billion in 2024, a significant leap from negative $128 million in 2022.”We expect Starlink to achieve positive free cash flow for the first time in 2024,” said Quilty.
This revenue number is even more astonishing when you compare it with the $12 billion in private capital the company has raised from investors since 2017. Next year alone SpaceX’s returns will cover half that investment, practically guaranteeing a generous profit in the coming years for those investors.
Even more significant, these revenues mean SpaceX now has a very healthy cash stream for completing construction of Starship/Superheavy, or in fact practically anything the company decides to build.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Tom Mueller (now Impulse Space) comments,
“Some of us working on StarLink 6-8 years ago had spreadsheets with basic cost assumptions of launch, sats and ground terminals, as well as revenue projections. The general consensus was, wow, the ROI is really quick, lets build and launch as many of these as fast as we can”
https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1789021514198905289
The author of the article focuses on Starlink satellite production as one key profit contributor, but she totally ignores the fact of reusability of the rockets, and how SpaceX has gone to scale on that.
Cutting a few hundred thousand off the cost of a satellite is small change compared to the marginal cost reduction achieved by launching each additional satellite, on rockets that can be re-used 20 times.
And the fact that these other companies can generate substantial revenue from satellites for which they paid dearly to launch, just goes to show how much of a cash-cow Starlink is.
I’ve actually been considering Starlink for the past few months, as our only internet provider was Xfinity.
But Frontier just finished wiring up my area with fiber-optic and I now have 1GB fiber-optic service for $49.95/month, unlimited use. And the Xfinity people are worried….I’ve never seen them offer such low teaser rates.
This provides a whole new connotation to Sagan’s billions and billions. Eventually our Solar System will be populated with a great deal of SpaceX cosmic ‘stuff.’
I’m very happy to be a Starlink customer. I also have a backup “land line” connection from the cable company (Starlink doesn’t like snow storms), but I still consider it money well spent. That’s my contribution to Starship.
Might I suggest a promotional program: Each year, one Starlink customer is randomly drawn for a flight on Starship. And, no, I don’t care how g-force-y the landing is.
BTW: I tend to forget which network I’m connected to. Whenever I have a connectivity issue, I look at the weather. Some sunny days I wonder what’s wrong with Starlink, only to find I’m connected to the land-line; not having switched back after the previous switch over. I’d rate both connections as equally reliable, but neither anywhere close to five 9s.
From the article:
Well, that is an interesting cost per V1 satellite. My previous understanding was that V1 cost $1 million each and launch cost was also around $1 million each.* The cost of launching each satellite far exceeded the cost of manufacture. So, they put up round 4,000 V1 satellites at a cost of around $1.2 million each, for a total cost of around $5 billion.
V2 satellites are a bit different, around 22 V2s per Falcon 9 launch for a cost of around $3 million each, so it costs around $4 million for each one on orbit. By the end of the year, they may have around 2,500 V2 satellites up there, costing around $10 billion. By the end of 2024, Starlink will have spent around $15 billion from inception.
If the company is up to $6.6 billion in annual revenues, that is a rapid return on the investment.
However, this is going to be an expensive year for Starlink. They will have around 100 Falcon 9 launches, which alone costs $6 billion. 2,200 V2 satellites costs another $2 billion, or less, so the breakeven may have to wait until the satellite launch rate becomes constellation replacements rather than constellation building. Unless they sign up more customers; they should have more capacity for U.S. customers as well as for more customers in countries in which they already are licensed, and there could be even more countries that will license Starlink in the future. Or unless Starship can start taking up even larger numbers for lower costs per satellite.
On the other hand, if Starlink makes $6.6 billion this year, and its revenues are increasing, the monthly revenue in December may be significantly more than the monthly average for the year. Next year could be quite a bit better, especially if they are still gaining customers.
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* I consider each Falcon 9 launch to be charged full price for accounting purposes, so that the cost to Starlink investors is attributed to that project, otherwise investors in the launch side will subsidize Starlink investors.