SpaceX’s Starlink Is Growing. How Investors Can Get an Edge.

Coming into Wednesday trading, SpaceX stock was up 16% from its $135 IPO price in June. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Wall Street is always looking for an edge. For SpaceX , that means tracking Starlink subscriptions.

Starlink is SpaceX’s space-based broadband product, which ended the second quarter with about 12 million subscribers —roughly double the number it had a year ago.

More growth is expected, and predicting that growth can help analysts and investors project a third-quarter earnings beat or miss.

KeyBanc analyst Brandon Nispel tracks Starlink app downloads and Google search traffic and believes SpaceX added about 1.8 million new subscribers.

The Barron’s Daily

A morning briefing on what you need to know in the day ahead, including exclusive commentary from Barron’s and MarketWatch writers.

Email addressSubscribe

I agree to the Terms of Use, Privacy Notice and Cookie Notice.

I would like to receive updates and special offers from Dow Jones and affiliates.

Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu uses data from Idem Est Research & Advisory, and expects to see the quarter-end subscriber number up about 1.5 million, or about 13%, from the second quarter.

That should be enough to hit Wall Street revenue estimates—assuming stable pricing. Analysts project $4.8 billion in quarterly Starlink revenue—up 12% from about $4.3 billion in the second quarter.

SpaceX will likely report third-quarter numbers in early November. Its first-ever quarterly report in August was much better than expected and helped arrest stock declines that followed its record-setting June IPO.

Overall, Wall Street projects third-quarter revenue of $12.9 billion, up from $7.8 billion in the second quarter. Starlink is growing, but the majority of sales growth is coming from SpaceX’s AI business. That segment is expected to generate sales of about $6.4 billion, up from second-quarter sales of $2.6 billion.

SpaceX stock was up 0.4% in premarket trading at $157.12, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively.

SpaceX stock fell a sharp 4.2% on Tuesday. Profit-taking was as good a reason as any to blame for the decline. Coming into Wednesday trading, the shares were still up about 6% over the past month.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@barrons.com.

Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8