Elon Musk hopes that the number of Starlink users will reach 500,000 in the next year
SpaceX founder Elon Musk said at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) that its Starlink satellite network business is expected to reach 500,000 users in the next 12 months. At present, Starlink’s main goal is to expand the network coverage to most areas of the earth by August.
Since 2018, SpaceX has launched more than 1,700 low-orbit satellites for the Starlink program, and the number of users of the entire Starlink program has exceeded a strategic number of 69,420 people. Elon Musk said that it is estimated that in the next 12 months, Starlink users can reach 500,000.
“Elon Musk Dreaming of a Brighter Future” by jurvetson is licensed under CC BY 2.0
To achieve this goal in the coming year, and to achieve global internet coverage — minus Arctic regions — in the next two months is not a small challenge for Starlink, the most important thing is money. Elon Musk said that the current Starlink terminal with an asking price of $499 per user actually costs more than $1,000. Earlier, this set of equipment cost even $3,000. Therefore, SpaceX is selling the device at a loss. He hopes that the cost of Starlink terminals can be reduced to within a few hundred dollars in the next one or two years.
Musk said the Starlink team has signed deals with two “major country” telecom operators, but he didn’t name them. He considers Starlink to be “complementary” to existing 5G providers rather than directly competing with them. “You can think of Starlink as filling in the gaps between 5G and fiber and really getting to the parts of the world that are the hardest to reach,” he said.
When asked how much money he plans to invest in Starlink, Elon Musk said it depends on how you define investment:
Before we go to positive cash flow, it’ll be at least $5 billion, and maybe as much as $10 [billion]. So it’s quite a lot. We’ll have to keep investing a great deal after that point to remain relevant among competitors. The total Starlink investment will round out to $20–30 billion.
SpaceX expects that Starlink plans to generate $30 billion in revenue, and may split Starlink from SpaceX to issue an IPO in the future.
Via: theverge
