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A new report from Quilty Space, first reported by SpaceNews, shows SpaceX's Starlink could be closer than ever to an initial public offering. The space internet company's 2024 forecasted revenue will top $6.6 billion.
"Starlink's achievements over the past three years are mind-blowing," the report said, adding, "We're projecting a revenue jump from $1.4 billion in 2022 to $6.6 billion in 2024."
To give you an idea of scale, SES and Intelsat, the two biggest geostationary satellite operators that just announced a merger, have a combined revenue of about $4.1 billion.
In 2019, SpaceX launched the first 60 Starlink satellites on the company's Falcon 9 rocket. Fast-forward to today, and Starlink has a constellation of nearly 6,000 satellites, over 5,200 operational, and nearly 3 million terminals across 75 countries.
In November, Elon Musk posted on X, "Excited to announce that @SpaceX @Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow!"
Excited to announce that @SpaceX @Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow! Excellent work by a great team.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2023
Starlink is also now a majority of all active satellites and will have launched a a majority of all satellites cumulatively from Earth by next year.
Quilty expects "Starlink to achieve positive free cash flow for the first time in 2024."
Achieving positive free cash flow could be one of the major milestones Musk needs before debuting a Starlink IPO. He previously stated in 2022, "I'm not sure exactly when that [IPO] is, but maybe it will be like — I don't know, just guessing — three or four years from now."
Last year, billionaire investor Ron Baron told CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin that SpaceX plans to IPO Starlink in 2027.
Baron said, "We think that by the time they go public with SpaceX, with Starlink … in 2027 or so, four years, the company will be worth $250 billion to $300 billion."
CNBC reported that the latest valuation figure for SpaceX was around $180 billion in December.
