SpaceX Starlink Has Over 1.5 Million Customers

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SpaceX was adding 150k Starlink users per month at the end of 2022. SpaceX has 1.5M subscribers now.

From Jan -Apr 2023, SpaceX had 30 launches. Although one of those was the Starship test.
Number of launches: 30 (Falcon 9: 27, Falcon Heavy: 2, Starship: 1T)
Launches success rate: 100%
Launch rate: 4.27 days (Needed for 100 launches: 3.65 or lower)
East Coast launches: 21 (LC-39A: 5, SLC-40: 16)
Gulf Coast launches: 1 (Starbase)
West Coast launches: 8 (SLC-4E)

Total payload mass: ~296,974 kg (Not including classified and rideshare missions)

Total crew: 4 (Government: 4, Commercial: 0)

If SpaceX is able to increase Starlink satellite dish production to 500,000 dishes per month by mid-2023 then they could make 1 million in first half of 2023 and 3 million in the second half. This would nearly double the 2023 revenue projection for Starlink over Payload Space.

Every 2 million more residential Starlink customers adds $3 billion per year in runrate to revenue. 6 million more residential customers in 2024 would add $9 billion per year in revenue.

Two major communication lines of business starting this year. Starshield and Direct to Cellphone via Gen 2 satellites. Monthly dish production is the limiting factor on Starlink revenue. 4% of the orbiting satellites provide service to 80% of the Starlink customers who are in North America. The current orbital satellites can support 20 million global customers. Doubling the orbital bandwidth in 2023. 40 million serviceable capacity by the end of 2023. Ramping dish production to 1-2 million per month to rapidly capture those customers is the only factor preventing SpaceX Starlink from getting to $30-60 billion per year in revenue early in 2024.

8 thoughts on “SpaceX Starlink Has Over 1.5 Million Customers”

  1. If you’re looking for non-consumer Starlink uses, perhaps IoT? Deploy to windfarms, ships at sea, forestry networks, infrastructure monitoring, etc. where cell/landline networks are hard or costly to buy/build.

  2. I’m curious about the niche that was mentioned early in the development of Starlink for faster delivery of financial data over long long distances between major centers like Hong Kong, London, New York. With laser links in place Starlink can deliver data significantly faster than fiber even if fiber was optimally routed (and it’s currently far from optimal).

    This could be a killer app for a business competing with Bloomberg Terminals charging high monthly rates because the customers have deep pockets and can’t afford to have their competitors getting information faster.

    I also wonder if Elon Musk sees the direct to mobile device tech as an advantage for his Twitter/X Super app (WeChat-like) payments/transfers/banking. Payments and other money movement can work with limited bandwidth and would benefit from being universally accessible anywhere on earth – potentially even without a local carrier or ISP.

  3. If they want much more than that, they’ll have to lower the price to compete in not-America. No one in Europe is paying $100 a month for internet, try $30-40 with no upfront hardware costs, and that’s on the expensive side of “rest of the world”.

    Starlink won’t survive as just a service for people out in the sticks, there’s not enough customers to justify the largest satellite constellation ever built by orders of magnitude. They need to compete with city fibre to the premises, which is cheaper, faster and more reliable.

    • Starlink has by definition capacity limits.
      Corrently with almost 4K V1 & V1.5 satellites, they have one satellite per just over 100,000 sq. KM, with max download rate of 20Gbps.
      With 30K Gen2 they will have ~80Gbps per every 15,000 sq. KM
      Assuming that by then during the evening most houses will stream at least 2 4K videos (50Mbps), then they can support under 2000 subscribers with each V2 Starlink.
      Urban areas has millions of houses per 15,000 sq. KM
      Starlink can never be a significant ISP for urban areas.

      They can reach 10M or maybe even 20M subscribers world wide + high payment from ships, plains and military, so they can potentially reach $20B income per year.

      • Bigger rockets can orbit bigger satellite and bigger satellite can host a lot more HW for communication, antennae, etc.

        Gen2 will not be the last.

    • Starlink has not and will never compete with fibre to the premises service. It will always be priced at a significant premium, as it is designed to serve customers that can’t practically/economically be served by fibre.

      • I don’t think that competing with fibre on a speed and cost basis is the relevant issue here. Independence and urgency are the factors that will dominate the further adoption of STARLINK.
        I’ve cut the cords of telephone, TV and internet using STARLINK since February 2021. The tyranny of Bell and it’s monopolistic business practices will cause me and many others to forsake them even if monthly charges come into play. I don’t want to be held hostage by then any more!

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