Why SpaceX Has an Uphill Battle Growing Starlink Mobile
The Takeaway
- SpaceX’s highest-profile Starlink Mobile deal is worth around $100 million
- SpaceX is pouring tens of billions of dollars into expanding Starlink Mobile
- Starlink’s broadband business dwarfs its mobile one
SpaceX executives say its Starlink Mobile direct-to-cell service offered through mobile carriers will eventually reach hundreds of millions of customers around the globe, which would help justify SpaceX’s valuation. But right now, the service’s revenue is tiny.
T-Mobile, for instance, SpaceX’s only mobile partner in the U.S., is offering its customers access to Starlink Mobile in exchange for paying SpaceX a total of around $100 million as it hits service milestones, according to two people with direct knowledge of the deal. That includes an up-front payment worth tens of millions made when T-Mobile originally struck the deal in 2022, as well as additional payments linked to the service’s launch last year.
That total is a tiny portion of SpaceX’s overall revenue, which was about $16 billion in 2025. The previously unreported size of the T-Mobile deal shows just how far SpaceX has to go to make Starlink Mobile a significant business. The regular Starlink service, which uses a separate constellation of satellites to beam internet to terminals rather than phones, remains much larger and is responsible for the vast majority of Starlink revenue.
The prospects for Starlink Mobile are taking on greater significance now that SpaceX is planning to go public. The company last week reportedly filed confidentially for an IPO. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk claims that the direct-to-cell service is helping lift SpaceX’s valuation, which the company recently put at $1.25 trillion.
Inside SpaceX, Musk has talked about the T-Mobile deal as a way to reach millions of potential mobile customers, rather than a large revenue driver at first, one of the people said.
In public, Musk has described the T-Mobile deal as exclusive in the U.S. for the first year of service, then open to other carriers. “We are starting off working with one carrier in each country but ultimately hope to serve all carriers,” Musk said in 2024.
Starlink Mobile beams cellular service directly to phones, offering service in areas not reached by cell towers. The service is more extensive and seamless than satellite features currently offered by Apple on iPhones, which use service from satellite firm Globalstar to offer texting and location services in remote areas.
Right now the service is a niche offering. In a presentation in March, Starlink chief Michael Nicolls said the mobile service is used by 10 million people a month globally and had connected “over 16 million unique users” in total. The largest number of those are likely in Ukraine, based on statements by Ukrainian carrier Kyivstar, which offers Starlink Mobile there. In March a Kyivstar executive said 5 million customers use Starlink Mobile for text messaging in the country. Kyivstar offers Starlink text messaging for free.
Nicolls said the company hopes to increase the number of monthly global users to 25 million by the end of this year. But there’s uncertainty in the mobile industry about consumer demand for Starlink Mobile, given that traditional mobile networks provide reliable service from cell towers in most places where people live and work.
For Starlink Mobile to make financial sense for carriers, they need to convince users to pay up—T-Mobile currently offers Starlink Mobile as a $10 a month add-on or as a benefit included in more premium plans. T-Mobile hasn’t disclosed precise user figures for its satellite service, but it said in January that nearly 2 million people had registered for a free beta version it launched in 2025, and that millions of text messages had been sent through the service.
SpaceX has shown an ambition to expand Starlink Mobile. It has agreed to buy mobile spectrum from EchoStar for $19.6 billion, which the company plans to use for an expanded version of Starlink Mobile that can support video streaming and video calls. This service will operate on Starlink Mobile’s next generation of satellites, which it will launch starting next year, once its delayed Starship rocket enters service.
SpaceX bulls envision huge growth for Starlink Mobile on the horizon. In a report published in March, a PitchBook analyst predicted that Starlink Mobile revenue would grow from an estimated $240 million in annualized revenue currently to over $42 billion by 2040.
Aside from the uncertainty about consumer demand, Starlink Mobile also faces the prospect of growing competition. In the U.S., for instance, AT&T and Verizon have struck partnerships with Starlink Mobile rival AST SpaceMobile, which aims to start offering service later this year.
Timotheus Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, which has a deal to launch Starlink service in Europe in 2028 and is the majority owner of T-Mobile, said in March that the company is open to working with multiple direct-to-cell service providers. SpaceX also offers Starlink Mobile through deals with other mobile carriers in several other countries including Japan, Canada, Ukraine and Australia.