Starlink, via its newly launched Twitter account, just unveiled that it surpassed the inaugural mark of 1.5 million subscribers.
Just five months prior, in December 2022, Starlink managed to attract its one millionth subscriber, capping off a year of hypergrowth.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the subscriber milestones that Starlink reached since it launched in the US back in November 2020:
| Date | Number of subscribers |
| 05/2023 | 1,500,000 |
| 12/2022 | 1,000,000 |
| 05/2022 | 400,000 |
| 03/2022 | 250,000 |
| 01/2022 | 145,000 |
| 11/2021 | 140,000 |
| 08/2021 | 90,000 |
| 06/2021 | 69,420 |
Early on, Starlink’s growth prospects where limited by the firm’s ability to produce hardware at scale and reasonable costs. However, according to SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell, those issues are largely resolved now.
In recent times, Starlink became available in more parts of the United States, which had previously been waitlisted. However, huge parts of the Midwest and East Coast remain inaccessible for those wanting to subscribe to the Residential plan.
Starlink has also expanded into a variety of new markets throughout 2023, including El Salvador, Ecuador, Nigeria, Haiti, Rwanda, and others. Many more, like Panama or Georgia, are expected to launch soon.
And lastly, its B2B offering has grown substantially as well. Starlink has made literal waves in the Maritime sector where it managed to sign up heavy hitters such as Norwegian Cruise Lines, Hong Kong-based ship manager Anglo-Eastern, and many more.
If we assume that Starlink’s average contract size is at around $100 per month, then the service would already generate a whopping $150 million per month, equaling an annual run rate of $1.8 billion.
Starlink has also turned on the revenue dial in recent weeks, adding a new Mobile Priority plan for those who use the service at sea. Thousands are now switching from paying $150 per month for Roam to $250 for Mobile Priority, plus $2/GB for additional priority data.
Meanwhile, Starlink continues to expand its constellation at a rapid pace. This week’s launch put its in-orbit constellation size at over 4,000 satellites.
Starlink suffers outage on Friday evening
Let’s hope this one won’t become a regularity: on Friday evening, thousands of users on Reddit and Facebook reported that they couldn’t access the internet after what seemed to be another temporary outage.
Less than 4 weeks ago, Starlink went through another outage, taking out users across the globe, due to an expiring ground station certification.
Luckily, this outage only seemed to have affected those located in the Eastern and Central parts of North America. Plus, the issue itself was resolved within a few minutes, allowing Starlink’s subscribers to enjoy their Friday night programming.
So I was in that first 140,000 subscribers and I am STILL waiting for the dish. Here in Tennessee.
Hi Jim,
this article may be of help to you: https://starlinkinsider.com/how-to-get-starlink-faster/
Regards,
Viktor