Starlink Reaches One Million Subscribers

Starlink now has over one million subscribers, according to comments from SpaceX’s Vice President of Starlink Commercial Sales Jonathan Hofeller, here at Satellite 2023. While he didn’t give an exact figure, Starlink’s past rate of growth suggests the company has eclipsed Hughes Network Systems as holder of the most active consumer satellite internet subscriptions. Starlink claimed roughly 700,000 subscribers in September 2022, and announced passing the 1 million subscriber mark in December, just three months later. Assuming a steady rate of growth, Starlink should be at roughly 1.3 million subscribers this month.

GEO rival Hughes reported 1.23 million as of Dec. 31, a figure that has been declining for several quarters while the company awaits fresh capacity from a new satellite, Jupiter-3, launching later this year. Viasat is in a similar position, with a fleet of maxed-out GEO satellites that have little room for new subscribers. Viasat stopped publishing its subscriber count in mid-2021 as Starlink began stealing customers but had 590,000 at the time. Starlink’s ability to rapidly gain market share, while undoubtedly buoyed by SpaceX’s reputation, also benefited from optimal timing. The company began launching LEO satellites en masse right as incumbent satellite internet providers stumbled from one delay to the next. Hughes and Viasat are launching two of the most powerful GEO satellites ever built (Jupiter-3 and ViaSat-3 Americas, respectively) this year, but after six years in construction, will find themselves in a radically different competitive environment from when they were ordered.