Explosive Growth of Starlink's Customer Base

This week on Pathfinder, we’re joined by Jack Kuhr, Research Director at Payload, for a deep dive into one of the most closely watched companies in the space industry—SpaceX. We break down Payload’s latest analysis of SpaceX’s revenue, exploring how the company’s launch business and Starlink network are shaping its financial trajectory.

With our estimate of SpaceX’s 2024 revenue at $13.1 billion, this episode unpacks the numbers, key growth drivers, and what’s next. We also discuss:

• How Payload builds its SpaceX revenue model and refines estimates year after year
• The breakdown of SpaceX’s revenue across launch, Starlink, and other government contracts
• The rapid growth of Starlink—now at 4.6 million customers—and where the business is headed
• The future of Starship and its impact on Falcon 9, launch pricing, and industry competition
• Potential financial winners and losers when Starship becomes fully operational
• Speculative questions on SpaceX’s future, from a possible IPO to whether it can become the first trillion-dollar space company

And more…
 

• Chapters •

00:00 Intro

01:02 Jack's background

02:16 Constructing the SpaceX revenue estimates

06:17 How close our predictions were

08:01 Numbers rundown

10:02 SpaceX's percentage of global launch

10:45 SpaceX's price per launch

12:26 Does SpaceX need Starling to stay profitable?

13:55 When will Starship launch paying customers?

15:44 Starlink's next-gen satellites

18:19 Starlink's sub growth

20:38 Evolution of Starlink's pricing power

22:51 Where does SpaceX see the most growth?

25:12 Starlink's scalability and will it ever reach 50+ million customers?

29:03 SpaceX's other revenue generator

31:10 Will Starship make Falcon 9 obsolete?

32:37 Who loses when Starship becomes fully operational?

34:05 Will demand make up for the loss of cost per kilogram?

36:33 If SpaceX was a public company, how would investors react to these revenue figures?

39:19 Which SpaceX revenue stream could 10x?

41:03 Will SpaceX be the first trillion-dollar space company?
 

• Show notes •

Estimating SpaceX’s 2024 Revenue — https://payloadspace.com/estimating-spacexs-2024-revenue/

Jack’s socials — https://x.com/JackKuhr

Mo's socials — https://twitter.com/itsmoislam

Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace

Pathfinder archive — Watch: https://www.youtube.com/@payloadspace

Pathfinder archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/episodes

• About us •

Pathfinder is brought to you by Payload, a modern space media brand built from the ground up for a new age of space exploration and commercialization. We deliver need-to-know news and insights daily to 19,000+ commercial, civil, and military space leaders. Payload is read by decision-makers at every leading new space company, along with c-suite leaders at all of the aerospace & defense primes. We’re also read on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon, and at space agencies around the world.

Payload began as a weekly email sent to a few friends and coworkers. Today, we’re a team distributed across four time zones and two continents, publishing five media properties across multiple platforms:

1) Payload, our flagship daily newsletter, sends M-F @ 9am Eastern

2) Pathfinder publishes weekly on Tuesday mornings (pod.payloadspace.com)

3) Polaris, our weekly policy briefing, publishes weekly on Tuesdays

4) Payload Research, our weekly research and analysis piece,  comes out on Wednesdays

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