According to analysts at Quilty Space the SpaceX/Starlink ‘broadband-by-satellite’ system has now hit 5 million subscribers/users.
“From its debut announcement of 60,000 subscribers in 2021 to hitting 5 million this month, Starlink’s growth trajectory is not only accelerating at a rapid clip — but the timeline of milestones continues to narrow. After reaching its first million subscribers in 2022, it took nine months to double that. In 2024, Starlink added 3 million subscribers, with announcements spaced once every quarter,” says Quilty.
Quilty suggests that the net quarterly growth since September 2024 for Starlink is around 1 million.
The researchers say that Starlink will bring in $11.8 billion (€11.2bn) during 2025 driven by strong consumer demand and growing US military contracts, and well ahead of this year’s $7.7 billion total revenues. The 2025 revenue projection includes $7.5 billion from consumer services, $1.3 billion in hardware sales, and $3 billion from US government contracts.
The researchers at Quilty have compiled a 20-page report on SpaceX and examines Starlink’s role as SpaceX’s primary profit engine, fuelling its soaring valuation — now estimated at around $350 billion following the recent Tender Offer for SpaceX stock.
“Starlink is now seen as an indispensable asset throughout the entire government sector, from U.S. embassies to the battlefield,” the Quilty report states. “Starlink’s government sector momentum shows no sign of a slowdown.”
Starlink is slowly but surely adding new markets to its portfolio of existing countries, but there are some major missing nations. Turkey, for example, is still pending regulatory approval while India’s approvals seem stick in the usual Indian bureaucracy. Saudi Arabia is also waiting for approval as is the UAE, Oman, Israel, Lebanon
Most of North Africa is labelled ‘starting in 2025’ including South Africa, Egypt and Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania. There are some African locations (including Harare, Zimbabwe, Lusaka, Zambia, and Lagos, Nigeria) where Starlink is “sold out, such is the popularity of the service.
This coming year will still give Starlink ‘first mover advantage’ given the entry of potential rival broadband services from AST SpaceMobile and Amazon’s Project Kuiper.
A separate report from Analysys Mason, as part of their overview forecasts for 2025, says they expect 2025 to be a turning point for non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite companies.
“Amazon’s Project Kuiper is expected to roll out services and Starlink will accelerate large-scale deal-making across all segments. Starlink’s recent flagship deals with, and deployments on, airlines Air France, Qatar Airways and United Airlines after years of slow testing and adoption illustrate this well. Amazon Kuiper will be a catalyst for activity as it rolls out services and becomes commercially active, taking advantage of Amazon’s unique strengths such as device manufacturing and cloud services,” notes Analysys Mason.
