SpaceX, the US launch company behind the Starlink satellite internet service, reported third-quarter 2026 revenue of $14.6 billion and its first quarterly net profit, $4.4 billion, on an earnings call that chief executive Elon Musk opened live from the company’s Starlink factory in Bastrop, Texas. Starlink’s consumer subscriber base reached 13.6 million at quarter-end, up 1.6 million in a single quarter, according to finance.biggo, which covered the call on 20 October, and basenor, which reported the results on 19 October.
The quarter in three numbers
Revenue of $14.58 billion was up 161% year on year and beat a $12.7 billion Bloomberg consensus, basenor reports, while net income of $4.40 billion reversed a loss of about $1.05 billion a year earlier on earnings per share of $0.35 against a $0.15 estimate. The more consequential figure for anyone tracking satellite internet is the segment mix. Connectivity — SpaceX’s label for Starlink and related services — brought in $5.2 billion, but was overtaken by the renamed Service & Infrastructure segment, built around what SpaceX calls Super Intelligence, at $7.56 billion. Starlink is now the company’s second-largest business, and basenor describes the result as a compute-infrastructure business that happens to own the leading launch provider and satellite network.
- Starlink consumer subscribers: 13.6 million, up from 12 million in the second quarter and 89% higher year on year.
- Connectivity revenue: $5.2 billion, up 69% year on year and 22% on the previous quarter.
- Adjusted EBITDA (a rough measure of operating cash generation before interest, tax and asset write-downs): $8.81 billion, up 306% year on year.
- Capital expenditure: $19.59 billion, of which $16.4 billion went to compute infrastructure, basenor reports.
What it says about the Starlink price
The only subscriber-economics figure disclosed was ARPU — average revenue per user, the monthly revenue the company collects per subscriber — which rose 5% from the previous quarter to $69, per finance.biggo. That is a blended global average across consumer, roaming and bundled plans, and neither report breaks it down by country or tariff, so it is not a guide to the Starlink price in any one market. Neither report records any announced price change, and neither sets out new country launches or availability dates.
Where the connectivity growth came from
Enterprise and government revenue jumped 91% year on year, finance.biggo reports, led by Starshield — SpaceX’s government and defence satellite line, which sells imaging and secure communications to military customers — and by aviation contracts. Starlink Mobile passed 22 million monthly users, up 37% quarter on quarter. SpaceX also won approval from the FCC, the US communications regulator, to launch 15,000 mobile V2 satellites, and announced an agreement to acquire a portfolio of low-band spectrum.
One caveat before the quotes: finance.biggo gives the chief financial officer title to two different people in the same report — Gwynne Shotwell, who is SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, and Brad Garlinghouse, a name with no publicly documented SpaceX executive role. Both labels appear to be errors in the source, so the remarks below are attributed to unnamed executives rather than repeated with those titles.
One executive said 85–93% of mobile connectivity runs over Wi-Fi and that Starlink broadband supports it, with S-band spectrum expected to carry most traffic and low-band providing building penetration. Musk said SpaceX sees a path to several hundred billion dollars a year in connectivity revenue and would detail the plan in a future presentation.
Launch, Starship and the compute buildout
The space segment brought in $1.8 billion, up 84% sequentially but only 6% year on year on what finance.biggo calls a favourable customer mix. SpaceX flew 35 rockets, including 21 Starlink Falcon 9 missions and two Starship flights, and booked 18 new national security launches. The quarter also carried its first revenue-generating Starship mission: Starship Flight 14 reached orbit and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites.
Super Intelligence revenue was up 830% year on year, basenor reports, on new enterprise cloud agreements, the 14 August acquisition of Cursor ($608 million from closing to 30 September) and wider adoption of Grok. SpaceX ended September with 1.7 gigawatts of nameplate compute capacity — the maximum power its data halls are built to draw — and an executive guided to 2.5–3GW by the end of the fourth quarter. Musk projected annual recurring revenue of $500 billion to $1 trillion by the end of 2027, contingent on that compute scaling.
For an ordinary Starlink customer, the relevance of the capex is mostly indirect. Basenor reports the spending is funded from operating cash flow and cash reserves rather than new debt or dilution, which sits alongside a separately reported $40bn GPU debt deal; neither report ties the buildout to subscriber pricing or rollout timing. What governs how fast satellite internet capacity grows remains launch cadence and satellite production, not data-hall gigawatts.
A note on sourcing
Both of the reports used here are secondary write-ups of the 20 October call. We have not seen a transcript, company press release or regulatory filing from SpaceX, and the two reports differ on executive titles, so every figure above is a re-report rather than a primary disclosure. Treat the numbers as provisional until SpaceX’s own documentation is published.
What the results do not tell African readers
Neither report splits the 13.6 million subscribers by country or region, and nothing in the earnings coverage addresses licensing in African markets, where Starlink’s licence application in South Africa is still waiting on a law change. Readers in Zimbabwe and elsewhere should read the quarter as a global picture only.
Frequently Asked Questions
What revenue has SpaceX guided for the next quarter?
SpaceX set first-quarter 2027 revenue guidance at $33–37 billion, according to finance.biggo. The same report says the backlog includes $17.5 billion in deferred revenue, with about $42 billion expected to be recognised within the next year.
How many aircraft is Starlink contracted to fit with Wi-Fi?
Starlink is contracted for roughly 12,000 planes, which finance.biggo reports was described on the call as almost a quarter of the available aircraft worldwide. Lufthansa, Swiss, Copa Airlines, Korean Air, Austrian Airlines and Asiana Airlines each flew their first Starlink-equipped aircraft during the quarter, the report says.
What happens next with Starship?
Flight 15 is scheduled for November and will attempt to catch both the booster and the ship, finance.biggo reports. Musk said on the call that success would be the first time an orbital launch vehicle has been fully recovered.
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