Forecast: Starlink could reach 100m subs by 2034
May 28, 2026
By Chris Forrester
A report from New Street Research (NSR) predicts that SpaceX’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite system could reach 100 million subscribers by 2034.
Starlink currently has more than 12 million subscribers worldwide. NSR analysts James Ratzer, David Barden and Pierre Ferragu said Starlink could get into that range as it eventually expands its capacity to support as many as 200 million subscribers via its V2 and V3 satellites, with the possibility of a future, higher-capacity V4 satellite.
“A technical assessment of the network capability on our ‘base case’ of trending towards 20,000 V3 1Tb/s satellites [shows] that they can grow capacity by 29x between 2025 to 2034,” the NSR analysts explained.
The report also says that Starlink will need to increase its marketing spend if it is to put more focus on the mass market for broadband.
“We see this as a big unknown for Starlink and one of the potential risks,” notes the report explaining that Tesla’s reluctance to spend heavily on marketing has slowed sales. “Even assuming its [marketing spending] will rise further, the early evidence is there that Starlink is running an extremely lean and scalable cost machine against more legacy telco cost structures.”
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