Jan-Erik Asplund
TL;DR: SpaceX hit $8.7B in revenue in 2023, up 89% year-over-year, with Starlink growing 121% to $4.1B to become their biggest line of business as SpaceX transitions from a launch provider to a multi-product platform. For more, check out our SpaceX report and dataset.
Key points from our research:
- Sacra estimates that SpaceX hit $8.7B in revenue in 2023, up 89% year-over-year from $4.6B in 2022—launch revenue was $3.5B (up 46%) while Starlink exploded to $4.1B (up 121%) to become SpaceX's biggest line of business. Starlink's growth, particularly internationally, is expected to accelerate further as they gain access to key markets like Indonesia (4th most populous country) and India (1st most populous).
- Via lowered launch costs, SpaceX has reignited the low-earth orbit satellite internet market—Starlink already dominates the decades-old market with 6,000+ satellites launched and 2.3M subscribers. By comparison, pre-Starlink, incumbents HughesNet and Viasat had a combined 2M subscribers—roughly 1% of the 2.6B people globally who don’t have access to traditional broadband.
- Just as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in the 1800s built an "app layer" of hotels, telecom, and resources on top of its rail network "platform", Starlink is just the first of many higher-margin businesses SpaceX can build on top of its space transportation platform. From space manufacturing ($40B market by 2030) to space tourism ($4B by 2030) to other satellite-adjacent opportunities—like SpaceX’s new partnership for rural internet with John Deere—SpaceX’s upside hinges less on rockets and more on being the core logistics platform for the space economy.
For more, check out this other research from our platform:
- SpaceX (dataset)
- Anduril, SpaceX, and the American dynamism GTM playbook
- Relativity Space
- The biggest mistake defense startups make
- Ross Fubini, Managing Partner at XYZ Capital, on the defense tech opportunity
- Shield AI (dataset)
- Scott Sanders, chief growth officer at RRAI, on the defense tech startup playbook
- Anduril (dataset)
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