Starlink is emerging as a critical factor in SpaceX’s potential IPO, with its growing user base and revenue model expected to strengthen investor confidence and boost the company’s valuation. SpaceX has built and launched more active satellites than every other space program and company combined. It continues adding to the constellation at a rate of roughly 70 satellites per week.
Starlink, the global broadband internet service delivered from space reaches more than 9 million customers across residential, business, and government segments. It has plans to expand even further.
Currently, the service is “a low-latency, broadband internet system delivered via a constellation of thousands of LEO satellites” that “extends SpaceX’s advantage by vertically integrating the full loop — design, manufacturing, and operation — at unprecedented scale,” according to a recent report from PitchBook about the importance of SpaceX and Starlink.
Rather than relying on ground-based fiber or cell towers, Starlink uses a constellation of satellites in low earth orbit, just 340 to 750 miles above the surface to beam high-speed internet directly to small, self-installing dishes on the ground. As LEO satellites are much closer to Earth than traditional geostationary satellites, Starlink signals travel far shorter distances, which reduces latency to 25 milliseconds.
Starlink’s product portfolio has expanded well beyond consumer broadband. PitchBook categorizes the service across three principal areas: commercial connectivity (residential, business, maritime, and aviation), Starshield (a specialized government-focused product line leveraging Starlink technology for national security use cases, including secure communications and Earth observation), and direct to cell an emerging connectivity service (in partnership with carriers like T-Mobile) designed to provide text and voice coverage to unmodified LTE cell phones.
Starlink generated an estimated $10.6 billion in revenue in 2025, approximately 67% of SpaceX's total of $15.8 billion, with EBITDA of $5.8 billion, representing a 54% EBITDA margin.
The Information reported similar numbers. The SpaceX core business (Starlink, rocket launches) generated around $6 billion in EBITDA last year, though total company revenue came in higher at $18.5 billion.
Starlink’s subscriber growth is showing momentum. Starlink reached more than 9 million subscribers in more than 155 countries by the end of 2025, doubling its base for two consecutive years. Analysts and investors likely expect another big surge of customers, and Starlink’s recent deal with US Mobile may accomplish that.
For IPO investors, this combination of recurring subscription revenue, expanding margins, multivertical growth, and a massive cost advantage due to its parent company’s ability to launch rockets cheaply is the play.
The satellite internet service has grown from an engineering project into the dominant revenue machine, supercharging the world’s most valuable private company.
Despite a recent report suggesting SpaceX lost $5 billion last year, that loss was due to its heavy investments in xAI.
SpaceX’s core rocket launch business, its Starlink satellite service earned around $6 billion in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA).
Examining Starlink’s business model and its plans for growth is key to the SpaceX story. Add it all together, and it makes SpaceX the most anticipated offering of all time, with its sheer size dwarfing all others at an estimated valuation of $2 trillion.
As PitchBook put it, Starlink “creates recurring internal demand that justifies large-scale capital expenditure, and it forces SpaceX to behave like a high-volume manufacturer rather than a bespoke aerospace producer.”
A SpaceX IPO would be almost a Starlink IPO, which is an opportunity to invest in the world’s largest and fastest-growing satellite internet business, backed by the only launch provider capable of replenishing and expanding a 9,600-satellite constellation at industrial scale.