Estimating SpaceX’s 2023 Revenue – Payload – Payload

Ed. note: This is Payload Research analysis, authored by Mo Islam, Payloads cofounder and Jack Kuhr, Payloads Research Director. This is an educated best guess, not based on access to any SpaceX internal data or proprietary info!

Payload is back with our SpaceX revenue analysis. This week, well estimate SpaceXs 2023 revenue, breaking down launch and Starlink revenue. Next week, we will be dusting off our crystal ball to predict 2024 revenue. (To receive next weeks article in you inbox, you can sign up for our Research newsletter here).

2022 bullseye: Payloads 2022 SpaceX revenue estimates were dead on last year with our estimate of $4.597B coming within a mere $3M of the WSJ-reported actual revenue of $4.6B.

2023: We are estimating SpaceXs 2023 revenue hit $8.7B.

To illustrate the revenue growth and profitability, we built a SpaceX three-year income statement (hat tip to WSJ for the rarely-seen historical detail).

Now, lets get more granular with 2023 revenue detail. In February, we published our 2023 SpaceX revenue prediction of $11.5B; today we are revising the number to $8.7B with complete year-end data.

As you can see below, Payloads revised 2023 estimate gets us to $8.721B of sales.

Please note: Subscription revenue isnt a simple total subscriber x cost per month calculation. We calculated it monthly with an assumed growth rate.

In 2023, SpaceX prioritized Starlink constellation build-out over customer launches, resulting in lower revenue. Launch revenue came in $1.8B below our forecast driven by 1) fewer-than-expected commercial Falcon 9 launches and 2) two crewed missions pushed to 2024. We revised Starlink revenue down by $1.3B driven by slightly lower user numbers and less business (fixed site) subs.

StarlinkSpaceX reported 2.3M active customers at the end of the year, up from 1M last year. Our prediction at the beginning of last year 2.6M. SpaceX has switched from defining users as subscribers to customers, perhaps due to subscription pausing, sharing, and discount dynamics.

Launch:

Other contracts:

Conclusion: 2023 was the year of Starlink. The focus all year was on growing both Starlinks user base and satellite constellation. The investment paid off as SpaceXs revenue began to scale, and the company achieved significant profitability this year.

Predicting SpaceXs 2024 revenue: Stay tuned for our newsletter next week (you can sign up here), where we will attempt the impossible once again and predict SpaceXs revenue for the next 12 months.

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Estimating SpaceX's 2023 Revenue - Payload - Payload