[Starlink] Starlink profit growing rapidly as it faces a moment of promise and peril (Ars Technica)

[David Lang]

just one note on the 5 year service life. The orbit they are in is such that a 
failed satellite will reenter within 5 years. That doesn't mean that they only 
have fuel for 5 years of operation

Also re: revenue, many places outside the US pay less than $100/month, and many 
users in the US pay more than $100/month, so it's hard to come up with the 
average per-subscriber revenue. But I agree thta it makes the article revenue 
numbers plausable.

David Lang


On Thu, 6 Feb 2025, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote:

> Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2025 21:47:26 +1300
> From: Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Reply-To: Ulrich Speidel <u.speidel at auckland.ac.nz>
> To: starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
> Subject: Re: [Starlink] Starlink profit growing rapidly as it faces a moment
>     of promise and peril (Ars Technica)
> 
> Now the interesting thing here is that with 5 million subscribers paying 
> about US$1200 a year, you'd get about 6 billion from bog standard dishy end 
> users alone. So that $8.2b is credible.
>
> Note this is revenue, not profit. To get there, pointing at the other posts 
> today, Starlink had to build a constellation of about 7,000 satellites. Even 
> if we looked just at these 7,000 and assumed incorrectly that they all got to 
> enjoy a full service life of maybe 5 years, we'd be looking at 1,400 of them 
> needing to get replaced each year going forward. Assuming here 1000 kg per 
> satellite going forward (just ballpark) and US$1000/kg launch cost. So that's 
> a US$1M replacement cost per satellite (not even looking at the hardware), 
> and that's got to come out of those $8.2b. So I guess profit might be closer 
> to the $6b mark at best in that scenario, and probably nowhere near that so 
> far due to the fact that SpaceX are launching at well beyond replacement 
> rate, the launch costs of anything older than Starship are higher, and the 
> V3's will be closer to 2000 kg than 1000 kg. So that mightn't leave quite 
> that much change out of the $8.2b to throw at other projects. But it's 
> certainly looking like a sustainable business.
>
> But then Starlink are growing. I guess with Elon now being in de-facto 
> control of the FCC, they'll get what they want, but more sats up there also 
> means having to replace more eventually. So that cost will go up.
>
> It then depends on revenue growth, and that in turn depends on:
>
> * capacity available to sell and
> * markets to sell into.
>
> And here lies the crux: Capacity comes in two types:
>
> 1. Spectral capacity. That's SpaceX's ability to find a frequency to
>   serve a customer on that isn't already in use in the customer's
>   neighbourhood.
> 2. Beam capacity: The ability to find a spare beam on a satellite that
>   can be used for that customer.
>
> Now the second one of these is easy to address - just launch more sats and 
> put more beams on each sat. But the second capacity is worth nothing in a 
> place where you don't have the first one, which can't be increased by 
> launching more satellites - at least not unless they're different ones that 
> allow for smaller cells and sharper beams. That's a route that Starlink are 
> trying to go down FAIK, but there's limited growth potential here.
>
> And looking at the Starlink availability map, spectral capacity is something 
> they currently seem to be grappling with in quite a number of places. From 
> the Greenwich Meridian roughly east, they're "sold out" in: the greater 
> London area, Accra, Lagos, Benin City, Warri, Port Harcourt, Abuja, Lusaka, 
> Bulawayo, Harare, Maputo, Nairobi, Antananarivo, Jakarta, Perth, Manila, 
> Brisbane, Bethel, quite a lot of areas south of Anchorage, spots around 
> Fairbanks, Delta Junction, Whitehorse, the Seattle-Portland corridor, 
> Sacramento, Grande Prairie, Spokane, San Diego, Missoula, Edmonton, Apache 
> Junction, Nogales, Aspen Park, Guadalajara (MX), Monterrey (MX), Mexico City, 
> Austin, Puero Escondido (MX), De Ridder, Mérida (MX), San Salvador, Playa del 
> Carmen (MX), Peterborough (CA), Tuskegee, San Jose (CR), Highlands (NC), much 
> of western Jamaica, parts of the Dominican Republic, much of Puerto Rico, 
> Iqualuit, Leticia (BR), Rincón de Los Sauces, Sao Gabriel da Caochoeira, Tefé 
> (BR), Manaus (BR), Sao Paulo BR), Rio de Janeiro. It's been like this for a 
> couple of months now, so I guess it's not a problem with the Dishy supply 
> chain.
>
> Read: Not much growth potential at present in and around population centres 
> where Starlink used to be available and where there isn't good existing 
> ground infrastructure.
>
> There used to be a lot of availability "flickering" in areas where there was 
> more demand than beam capacity - this has gone solidly to "available" now 
> where it's not "sold out". So we can assume that the market there is 
> saturated now mostly.
>
> There remain those countries where Starlink isn't officially available yet. 
> Some of these get roaming service, and I'm aware of at least one of these 
> where spectral capacity is uncomfortably near (BTW: USAID was going to pay 
> for a fibre cable there so China wouldn't, but I guess Elon doesn't want 
> USAID to pay for the cable so China can own it. While they're waiting for it, 
> Starlink gets seen there as being unable to meet demand. It makes no sense to 
> me. Incidentally, the country has one of the largest sovereign waters in the 
> world and China is just waiting for the opportunity to get a naval base there 
> I guess - on the far side of Guam. Bye America!).
>
> Other countries where you can't get Starlink yet might contribute another few 
> million users - India in particular. But with Starlink not being able to 
> support particularly high user densities anywhere because of the spectral 
> constraints, we're unlikely to see billions of customers there either.
>
> On 6/02/2025 4:53 am, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Starlink wrote:
>> "He wants to take food off the table of people—hard-working people."
>> EXCERPT:
>>
>>     Two new independent estimates of revenue from SpaceX's Starlink
>>     Internet service suggest it is rapidly growing, having nearly
>>     tripled in just two years.
>>
>>     An updated projection from the analysts at Quilty Space estimates
>>     that the service produced $7.8 billion in revenue in 2024, with
>>     about 60 percent of that coming from consumers who subscribe to
>>     the service. Similarly, the media publication Payload estimated
>>     that Starlink generated $8.2 billion in revenue last year.
>>
>>     These estimates indicate that Starlink produced a few hundred
>>     million dollars in free cash flow for SpaceX in 2024. However,
>>     with revenues expected to leap in 2025 to above $12 billion,
>>     Quilty Space estimates that free cash flow will grow to about $2
>>     billion. SpaceX is privately held, so its financial numbers are
>>     not public.
>>
>>     *Growing subscribers*
>>     *
>>     *By launching thousands of satellites and developing an Internet
>>     service based in low-Earth orbit—where the proximity of satellites
>>     to the ground provides significantly faster and lower latency
>>     service than satellites in geostationary space—SpaceX has already
>>     exceeded space-based communication networks developed earlier.
>>
>>     At the end of last year, Starlink had 4.6 million subscribers.
>>     Quilty's director of research Caleb Henry noted that the previous
>>     incumbent players, Hughes and ViaSat, had a combined 2.2 million
>>     subscribers at their peak about half a decade ago, largely in
>>     North America, with some in South America and a smattering in
>>     Europe. Starlink is expected to add another 3 million subscribers
>>     this year alone.
>>
>>     SpaceX has other significant lines of business, including
>>     government customers, particularly the US Department of Defense,
>>     as well as maritime (75,000 vessels equipped with Starlink as well
>>     as 300 cruise ships) and aviation segments.
>>
>>     "The key takeaway I want everybody to walk away with is, if SpaceX
>>     was building the Starlink system to pay for a Mars colony, we've
>>     got evidence that the company will generate the type of free cash
>>     flows from the business that could pay for said endeavor," said
>>     Chris Quilty, co-chief executive and president of Quilty Space...
>> 
>> [...]
>> https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/starlink-profit-growing-rapidly-as-it-faces-a-moment-of-promise-and-peril/
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com
>> living as The Truth is True
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
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>
>
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