According to data compiled by Bloomberg, takeovers, investments and JVs in the industry this year have already surpassed 2020, with over $3.6 billion spent on them so far in 2021
The space industry has been forced to prepare for consolidation amid plans by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to launch thousands of satellites into orbit.
The billions of dollars that Musk is pouring into his Starlink broadband internet service is disrupting the economics of space for companies like SES SA, the world’s second-biggest satellite operator in terms of sales. The growth of streaming over fibre optic networks threatens another of their mainstays — satellite TV.
According to data compiled by Bloomberg, takeovers, investments and joint ventures in the industry this year have already surpassed 2020, with over $3.6 billion spent on them so far in 2021.
I’m sure everyone’s talking to everyone, said SES Chief Executive Officer Steve Collar. Space is essentially a fixed-cost industry, so the scale that’s generated from consolidation can be important financially. And obviously we’ve also seen some disruptors coming into the industry. That can also be a catalyst, he said in an interview.
ViaSat Inc. Chairman Mark Dankberg said there “certainly is discussion” in the industry about mergers. One of the reasons for consolidation would be to try to divert more capital funding from broadcast into broadband.
Although industry executives downplay the threat from Musk, they are adapting. Companies such as Inmarsat Holdings Ltd., ViaSat, Eutelsat SA and Telesat LLC plan to launch high-throughput or low-latency satellites to offer their own broadband services to businesses and homes.
The U.K.’s biggest satellite company, Inmarsat, “is likely to have many interested dance partners,” its Chief Executive Officer Rajeev Suri told Bloomberg last month in an interview about his plans for a new network with similar low-earth orbit technology to Starlink.
Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. was valued by investors this year at $74 billion. Last year, analysts at Morgan Stanley said Starlink made up four-fifths of SpaceX’s value. That would make Starlink worth roughly double the combined market value of the world’s biggest listed satellite companies.
Eutelsat and SES were the giants but now, compared with the potential of Elon Musk and Amazon to invest in this industry, they are very very small — and they don’t have the leadership in the new technologies, said Kepler Cheuvreux analyst David Cerdan.
He said Eutelsat should merge with SES if the countries’ respective governments can agree over control, as they share the problem of shrinking broadcast-TV income.