① Satellite Internet owned by Musk ① Starlink announced that its global active users have surpassed 9 million; ② Notably, the time it takes to cross user growth milestones is constantly shortening, with the latest milestone of 1 million users reached in just 47 days; ③ Musk remarked that it was "not easy," but also emphasized that the next leap forward is imminent.
Hours ago, Elon Musk's satellite internet business, Starlink, announced that the number of active users worldwide had surpassed 9 million.
(Source: X)
Compared to the number of 9 million itself, the growth rate of user numbers is the more crucial information.
According to statistics from previous Starlink posts, the company just announced on November 5th that its active user base had surpassed 8 million , following a previous milestone of 7 million on August 28th . The 6 million mark was reached on June 9th, and the 5 million mark was achieved on the last day of February this year. Going back further, the 4 million user milestone was reached at the end of September last year.
well-known Tesla Investor and Musk fan Sawyer Merritt shared statistics showing that it took Starlink a full 730 days to reach its first million user milestone, and the second and third million took more than half a year (274 days and 240 days respectively) . However, this year, the user growth rate has accelerated significantly, with the latest 1 million user increase taking only 47 days .
(Source: Sawyer Merritt)
At this rate of growth, Starlink will be celebrating surpassing 10 million users as early as the end of January next year.
The sharp increase in the business's expansion rate also signifies that Musk's highly anticipated satellite internet business has achieved a commercial closed loop and is beginning to reap the benefits of scale. Meanwhile, no competitors on Earth have emerged to threaten its market position. In October of this year, SpaceX announced the successful deployment of its 10,000th Starlink satellite in low Earth orbit. After accounting for losses, there are currently approximately 9,300 satellites in orbit.
Faced with this situation, Musk praised the Starlink team for doing a great job and remarked that "rebuilding the entire internet in space is not easy."
Musk also replied to Merritt, saying that the business will see another major leap forward once the giant Starship launch vehicle and the next generation of Starlink satellites (Starlink V3) are deployed.
(Illustration of Starlink V3 satellite, source: SpaceX)
Earlier this month, Musk talked about "space data centers". The report also mentioned that Starlink V3 might be deployed on a large scale in the fourth quarter of next year . However, it is well known that Musk's timeline is subject to change, and it is also possible that the company will experimentally deploy some new satellites earlier next year.
SpaceX has stated that the goal of its next-generation satellites is to provide gigabit-level satellite internet connection speeds . Currently, Starlink connection speeds are roughly in the range of 100Mbps to 300Mbps.
Of course, this plan also faces competition from the "AI space data center " concept. Musk stated that the V3 satellite would be modified to carry AI GPUs and specifically receive up to 150 kilowatts of solar power . The satellite is not difficult for SpaceX ; it is even simpler than developing the V3 satellite.
(Article source: CLS)
