The kind folks at Starlink are truly relentless. Just 24 hours after launching in Malaysia, the service now also became available in Malawi. 🇲🇼
The launch in Malawi represents Starlink’s 61st available market. In recent weeks, excluding yesterday’s Malaysia launch, Starlink was introduced in Kenya, Guatemala, and Cyprus.
And for the year 2023, Starlink has already gone live in 16 different countries. It has been on a particular tear in Africa where it became available not only in Kenya but Mozambique, Rwanda, and Nigeria.
The Residential package, Starlink’s most commonly adopted plan, is priced at MWK 52,000 (~ US$ 49) per month, which is slightly above average prices in Europe.
Additionally, subscribers pay a one-time hardware fee of MWK 655,000 (~ US$ 622), plus shipment and handling fees of MWK 26,500. (~ US$25).
Hardware, in all likeliness, will have to be shipped from other continents, thus the higher per-unit costs.
Make sure to check our global price list for an updated version of all the countries Starlink is available in as well as how much it charges in each of those locations.
However, Starlink points out in its order page that users should tame their expectations as the company continues to expand its ground station network as well as deploy more satellites using inter-satellite links (ISLs).
Interestingly, Starlink has been licensed in Malawi since October 2022. Starlink did not specify why it took this long to get launched.
The government of Malawi and SpaceX representatives had been in discussions since February 2022.
In all likeliness, it has been working on (and continues to) establishing a ground station and logistics infrastructure.
It remains to be seen how large the opportunity in Malawi is. After all, it only hosts roughly 20 million inhabitants who pose one of the lowest GDP per capita in the African continent.
With that said, Starlink is the first low-Earth orbit (LEO) service licensed in Malawi, which doesn’t offer a sophisticated broadband infrastructure.
Going forward, Starlink is expected to launch in Sierra Leone, which has granted the company an operating license just a few weeks ago.