Azernews.Az

Akbar Novruz

Read more

When Space Exploration Technologies Corp., better known as SpaceX, goes public on June 12, it will mark the largest initial public offering (IPO) in market history, with the company expected to raise $75 billion and reach a $1.75 trillion value. And when that happens, investors will be looking past ventures such as space exploration and Mars conquering to a seemingly much less exciting segment of SpaceX's operations, Starlink, AzerNEWS reports.

Starlink is SpaceX's satellite constellation that provides broadband internet and, occasionally, mobile service. It was first launched in May 2019, with the division itself founded four years prior. Since then, Starlink has spread to approximately 150 countries and territories. As of June 2026, it has over 12 million subscribers. According to independent telecommunication trackers, including Quilty and Space, between 4.5 million and 5 million of those are in the United States.

As a result, Starlink generated approximately $11.4 billion in 2025, over 60% of SpaceX's total revenue that year. In the first quarter of 2026, it earned a staggering $3.26 billion. Its revenue has followed a constant rising trend since its initial commercial rollout in 2021.

The significance of these figures lies in the fact that Starlink is, at the moment, the only profitable segment of Elon Musk's space exploration company. It is also the sole part of the business that connects it to a regular user, who has no connection to its more prolific ventures. By introducing Starlink, the world's richest man transformed SpaceX from a space science company into a telecom giant, offering internet via its satellite network to rural, maritime, and even aerial zones, where mobile towers do not exist.

Thanks to Starlink, SpaceX is not just a space-oriented establishment, but a business with regular subscribers and a revenue that drives its outer-world ventures. As a clear source of income, its performance will be of considerable interest to the company's present and upcoming investors.