Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk said on Tuesday that his Starlink satellite internet venture was growing quickly as he forecast total investment costs in the business at between $20 billion and $30 billion. The Tesla Inc CEO and founder of SpaceX, a rocket ship venture that seeks to colonise Mars, said investment costs before Starlink achieves fully positive cash flow would be $5-$10 billion. Starlink would need a few million subscribers paying about $99 a month each to recoup a $5 billion investment in a year's time, said analyst Tim Farrar, president of TMF Associates. A $30 billion investment over a decade would not require a dramatic rise in subscribers, but to achieve Musk's 2020 projection of roughly $30 billion revenue a year would require tens of millions of subscribers, he said. Paolo Pescatore, an analyst at PP Foresight, said Starlink needed scale which would lower costs: "hence the need to partner with telcos."

Source: Hindustan Times June 30, 2021 12:56 UTC