Direct-to-Device (satellite-to-cell)

Kiatnakin Phatra Securities said in an analysis dated October 1, 2026, that over the next three to four years low-earth-orbit satellite services, especially Starlink, are unlikely to significantly affect the market share of ground-based telecommunications operators in ASEAN, due to network capacity constraints and prices that remain higher than terrestrial services. Starlink's monthly service fee in Malaysia is about 58% higher than comparable-speed ground broadband, and nearly four times higher in Vietnam. As for direct-to-device, or D2D, satellite-to-handset connectivity, Kiatnakin Phatra sees it serving more as a supplementary service than a replacement, with the potential to support average revenue per user, or ARPU, but over the longer term it will be necessary to watch competition from Starlink more closely, as network capacity will increase significantly by 2030 with the deployment of the Starship rocket and V3 satellites. Since SpaceX's initial public offering in mid-June 2026, about half of ASEAN telecom stocks under Bank of America's coverage have underperformed the market, which Kiatnakin Phatra attributes to factors other than concerns about LEO competition. Its top pick in the ASEAN communications sector is Advanced Info Service, or ADVANC, on the back of an appropriate dividend yield, alongside Globe Telecom, or GLO, Indosat-Hutchison, or ISAT, SingTel, and PT Telkom, or TLKM. Starlink currently operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam, but has not yet launched in Thailand because of a rule limiting foreign shareholding in entities granted rights to use ground stations to no more than 49%. OneWeb has already offered fixed broadband services in Thailand since 2025, and Amazon LEO plans to launch services in Indonesia and Thailand in the future.

Industry analysts are discussing a potential merger between Space Exploration Technologies and Tesla that could combine the two groups under one entity. Commentary from these experts points to rising confidence that a deal could be structured to pool Tesla's AI and manufacturing with SpaceX's launch and satellite operations, including Starlink. If completed, the proposed tie up is being framed as capable of creating the world's largest listed company by market value. Space Exploration Technologies runs a global satellite-based broadband network, so any tie up with an electric vehicle and AI powerhouse would potentially link a US$2.1 trillion telecom operator directly with automotive, energy and software demand for high bandwidth connectivity. The key proof point from here is execution on joint AI and connectivity projects that both sides are already talking about, including orbital data centers and direct Tesla demand for Starlink and compute capacity, together with any concrete merger terms that clarify how capital, debt and governance would work inside a single structure.

Elon Musk said on SpaceX's August 4, 2026 earnings call that Starlink could deliver a majority of the world's internet traffic in less than 10 years, driven by a next-generation satellite that multiplies delivered bandwidth by roughly two orders of magnitude. In a post on X, Musk said connectivity per satellite will be about 10 terabits per second in both directions, with a path to more than 100 Tbps, and that each satellite is 250kW and will carry a SpaceX-designed Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72 computer. SpaceX expects to launch about an order of magnitude more Starlink V3 satellites than V2, and Musk said that even if monetization per bit drops by a factor of 10, Starlink revenue would still rise 10x; an FCC filing covering up to 100,000 Gen3 satellites was accepted for filing in mid-September 2026 but has not been approved. The Q2 2026 results showed total revenue of $7.81 billion, up 92% year over year, with the connectivity segment contributing $4.3 billion, up 66%, more than 1.7 million net consumer subscribers added, ARPU of $66 per month, and enterprise and government revenue up 108% on deals with American Airlines, Southwest, Virgin Atlantic, Iberia and Aer Lingus plus over $6 billion in multi-year Space Force Starshield contracts. Management said a critical mass of about 1,000 V3 satellites is needed before service improvements become significant, expected by approximately the second quarter of next year, and Musk told analysts that a year from now SpaceX will be doing at least one flight a day and possibly more. SPCX shares closed at $152.71 on September 18, up 9.35% over the past month.

Cathie Wood is calling the $1.75 trillion SpaceX IPO a deep value bargain, arguing that a single Starship launch could generate $1 billion in revenue. The ARK Invest founder tied that figure to Elon Musk's goal of 10,000 flights a year by 2030, a cadence that would imply $10 trillion in annual revenue from Starship alone. The math rests on Starlink connectivity revenue of roughly $19 million a year per terabit per second of network capacity, with one Starship carrying about 61 Tbps, though ARK data shows that per-Tbps figure sliding from $23 million in 2024 to $19 million in 2025. The projection assumes every flight carries Starlink capacity, while Musk has framed the 10,000-flight target against commercial air travel, a business that earns no connectivity revenue. Early investors have little to show so far: SPCX priced at $135 in June and closed its first session at $161, but the stock has since spent weeks below its IPO price, and Starship has flown only twice since the listing, both suborbital, with the V3 satellites released in July re-entering and burning up within roughly 20 minutes. The next mission aims to reach Earth orbit for the first time with 26 operational V3 units and would become the first Starship launch to earn commercial revenue.

Elon Musk said SpaceX has decided to build exclusively on Nvidia hardware, citing the Vera Rubin architecture as the best AI computer, during the company's second-quarter earnings call. The call was Space Exploration Technologies' first earnings call as a public company. SpaceX is using clusters of Nvidia GPUs to design orbital data centers, integrate with Starlink operations and Starship mission planning, and its near-term buzz centers on Starmind, an optimized satellite payload built on Nvidia's Vera Rubin NVL72 system. SpaceX has turned its Nvidia procurements into a fast-growing AI infrastructure business, leasing large clusters of Nvidia compute rather than using the chips solely to train its home-grown generative model, Grok. Anthropic entered a cloud services agreement with SpaceX worth $1.25 billion a month through 2029 for access to compute capacity across SpaceX's supercomputers Colossus and Colossus II, which feature roughly 325,000 Nvidia GPUs, while Google Cloud committed $920 million a month for access to roughly 110,000 Nvidia GPUs, CPUs, memory, and related networking kits through the middle of 2029, and Reflection AI signed a multiyear deal worth up to $6.3 billion to access Nvidia GB300 chips at a reported $150 million per month. Nvidia's data center revenue reached $89 billion in the second quarter, up 117% year over year, compared with AMD's $6.7 billion in data center sales, an increase of 107% year over year.

Britain's Ministry of Defence became the first government outside the United States to publicly confirm it uses Starshield, the military variant of Starlink built by SpaceX, a disclosure Reuters reported on September 10 that included UK spending of nearly $40 million on the company's satellite services. The UK deployment is small in dollar terms but operational, with the capped Starshield service tier in Britain including five terabytes of monthly data and per-terminal hardware starting at £4,000. SpaceX has already booked over $6 billion in multi-year U.S. government Starshield contracts from Space Force for LEO-based communications and sensing, and Gwynne Shotwell told analysts on the second-quarter call that the company won more than $6 billion in U.S. contracts in Q2 supporting major Space Force programs. Enterprise & Government revenue reached $1.806 billion in the quarter, up 108% year over year, driven by airline partnerships and Starshield, while Starlink ended the quarter with 12.0 million subscribers and Connectivity revenue of $4.29 billion, up 66% year over year. SpaceX spent $18.37 billion in capex in the quarter, with $15.83 billion directed to AI compute infrastructure, while posting a $541 million net loss, and the FY 2027 Space Force request includes $9.8 billion in Satellite Communication and $10.8 billion in Space-Based Sensing and Targeting.

AT&T CEO John Stankey said SpaceX's Starlink will not displace established wireless carriers, describing the relationship as a "complementary dynamic" rather than direct competition. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Tech Conference, Stankey said Starlink "doesn't get through buildings very well" and cannot penetrate high-rises or crowded stadiums, leaving AT&T uniquely positioned to meet customer performance expectations. He acknowledged Starlink's strengths in airlines, rural areas, and IoT applications such as connected vehicles with line of sight to the sky, and said AT&T could aggregate traffic and bring customers to satellite operators including Amazon and SpaceX through the wholesale market. Concerns have been rising on Wall Street that Starlink, after acquiring terrestrial spectrum and deploying advanced satellites, could move from rural broadband into a standalone cellular network and direct mobile competitor, pressuring carriers' enterprise, emergency service, rural, and international roaming revenue. KeyBanc analyst Brandon Nispel said investors are giving Starlink Mobile too much credit despite clear scaling challenges, and that no impact on broadband subscriber growth has been seen.

Crossroads Capital's second-quarter 2026 investor letter highlighted AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS), citing its transition from R&D startup to operational scaleup. The fund noted that the BB7 satellite launched on April 19 but was lost when Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket failed during deployment, resulting in a roughly $125 million write-off partially covered by launch insurance. AST SpaceMobile reported modest first-quarter revenue from gateways and government milestones, reaffirmed guidance, and held approximately $3.5 billion in cash. The FCC granted commercial authorization for SpaceMobile service in the United States covering up to 248 satellites, and Block 1 satellites set a 98.9 Mbps peak-speed record to unmodified smartphones.

Castle Rock Wealth Management disclosed a new 16,015-share position in AST SpaceMobile worth about $1.38 million, adding to institutional interest just days before the satellite-broadband company reports second-quarter results. The purchase is modest relative to AST's market value, but the timing puts fresh attention on Monday's earnings, where satellite deployment and cash consumption will matter far more than near-term profits. AST SpaceMobile is building a low-Earth-orbit satellite network designed to deliver broadband directly to ordinary smartphones without specialized hardware, and has relationships with nearly 60 mobile-network operators covering more than 3 billion subscribers. Three next-generation BlueBird satellites successfully launched on August 5, expanding the company's constellation and supporting planned service testing later this year. AST disclosed preliminary cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash of approximately $2.72 billion as of June 30, giving it a sizable liquidity cushion as satellite manufacturing and launches accelerate, though the company recorded a net loss of roughly $250 million in the first quarter.