Starlink received $1.4 billion in revenue in 2022, but this is significantly lower than forecasts
Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite communications network Starlink generated $1.4 billion in revenue in 2022. This is evidenced by documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, writes The Verge.
The result is significantly higher than the financial indicator for 2021, which was $222 million. However, last year’s revenue was ultimately much lower than the company’s forecasts. In a presentation to investors in 2015, it expected Starlink’s revenue to reach $12 billion in 2022.
The number of subscribers does not meet the forecasts either. At the end of last year, Starlink had more than 1 million users, although this figure was previously expected to reach 20 million users.
In May this year, the company reported about 1.5 million Starlink users. According to CNBC, the company says that the network has now “significantly exceeded” this mark.
By the way, Elon Musk and SpaceX recently got into a scandal over Starlink in Ukraine. The communication network was launched in our country last year and has played an important role for the Ukrainian military. However, it recently became known that in 2022, Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to disconnect Starlink near Crimea and by his actions disrupted Ukraine’s attack on the Russian fleet.
The billionaire himself denied this information – according to him, there was no connection in that territory from the very beginning, and he did not agree to turn it on when Ukraine urgently asked for it. He also later said that he did not do so because of US sanctions against Russia. Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate calls for an investigation into the situation.