SpaceX's Forecasts Likely Overly Optimistic, Northern Sky Research Says

SpaceX talk of hitting $30 billion in annual revenue by 2025 is almost surely overly optimistic and could ultimately undermine satellite industry credibility by creating unrealistic expectations, said Northern Sky Research analyst Lluc Palerm-Serra in a blog post Monday. That figure is more than the $19.7 billion NSR is forecasting for the satellite industry's overall data capacity revenue in 2025 -- and the firm expects much of that figure to come from video-related applications, which aren't apparently a target for SpaceX operations, it said. It said SpaceX's figure is also higher than previous forecasts for the whole data-centric applications market. It also would make SpaceX one of the world's largest telco operators and its internet business "would become the fastest enterprise ever to cross the $1 B benchmark after entering commercial operations," NSR said. The market for unconnected and under-connected households is huge at perhaps 471 million, but most of those are in low-income nations, it said. Such growth as SpaceX forecast would be great for the industry overall, NSR said, but company officials are "masters of strategic communications and have repeatedly made extravagant announcements to push analysts, the financial community, the industry and employees in its favor." SpaceX didn't comment.