This article first appeared on Trend Investing on June 16, 2020; therefore, all data is as of this date.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPACE) (private) ('SpaceX') has been rapidly launching satellites for its subsidiary Starlink, with an end goal to blanket the earth with between 12,000 and 42,000 small low earth orbit satellites, to provide faster speed, low latency, global internet coverage. This will give millions of people access to the internet that may have not been able to access conventional land-based internet services, usually due to their remote or undeveloped location.

Starlink will blanket the earth with low earth orbit satellites

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A Starlink satellite in orbit around the earth

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A report states:

Starlink could bring cheap, fast internet to remote areas, airplanes, ships, and cars, plus make international teleconferencing and online gaming nearly lag-free... The goal is to finish the project in 2027, thereby blanketing the Earth with high-speed, low-latency, and affordable internet access.

Starlink's low orbit satellites to circle 550 kms above the Earth and to provide 'low latency' internet

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Starlink states:

With performance that far surpasses that of traditional satellite internet, and a global network unbounded by ground infrastructure limitations, Starlink will deliver high speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable. Starlink is targeting service in the Northern U.S. and Canada in 2020, rapidly expanding to near global coverage of the populated world by 2021.

Note: Starlink's satellites will offer better internet performance due to their large number and low orbit location. This leads to industry low latency.

Soon customers in the US will be able to use Starlink's satellite internet service

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Starlink is a fully owned subsidiary of SpaceX. SpaceX is ~54% owned by Elon Musk. Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL) and some private funds are significant shareholders. A report states Alphabet owns 7.5% of SpaceX.

Wikipedia states:

In January 2015, SpaceX raised US$1 billion in funding from Google and Fidelity, in exchange for 8.33% of the company, establishing the company valuation at approximately US$12 billion. Google and Fidelity joined prior investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Founders Fund, Valor Equity Partners and Capricorn. In July 2017, the Company raised US$350 million at a valuation of US$21 billion... By May 31, 2019, the valuation of SpaceX had risen to $33.3 billion. In June 2019, SpaceX began a raise of US$300 million, most of it from the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan.

You can read more here on Starlink's plans to IPO.

SpaceX - Internet service provider fees

Note: As of April 2020, there are 4.57 billion internet users or 59% of the global population.

Customers in locations not able to get high speed/low latency or freedom of access to the internet (includes areas where the internet is unreliable or too expensive)

Those needing low latency will benefit

Internet giants will have more customers

It is looking increasingly likely that SpaceX may, in the foreseeable future, offer trips around the world in just under an hour. This may start with VIP cargoes, VIP travel, and eventually expand to a larger scale. An Inverse.com report quotes:

Beyond exploring planets like Mars and beyond, Musk also explained it could be used for Earth-to-Earth trips. These manned Earth trips wouldn't be pretty. Where a space-bound mission would fit 100 people in comfortable cabins, these Earth missions would pack 1,000 people into a configuration Musk compared to Space Mountain. The time savings, however, could radically transform humanity's conception of time and travel: London to New York (5,555 kilometers): From seven hours, 55 minutes by plane, to just 29 minutes by Starship.

At this stage, SpaceX is winning the race to provide the first truly global market satellite internet service. The key to their service will be 'global reach' and 'low latency'. Customers of Starlink will mostly come from low population density areas that have poor or no internet service, and Elon Musk expects this to be about 3-5% of the internet service provider market share. This means that Starlink will complement existing land-based internet services, including 5G, rather than compete against them. If built out by 2027, the Starlink service will achieve remarkable global reach, thereby offering the internet to most parts of the planet.

If successful, the big winner should be SpaceX, and hence Elon Musk. Those companies that gained access to SpaceX stock such as Alphabet and others will be smaller beneficiaries.

The other big winners should be the stocks that dominate the internet. They could potentially reap millions more customers, the real number being hard to determine at this stage.

Finally, other industries that benefit from the internet with 'global reach' and 'low latency' will benefit. Some examples would be search and rescue and salvage (lost people/planes/ships), satellite navigation companies, digital nomads and online workers, autonomous vehicles especially in remote areas, military applications, high-frequency traders, gamers/eSports, and so much more.

As usual, all comments are welcome. Feel free to share some ideas of stocks/sectors/countries that may be winners from Starlink.

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Disclosure: I am/we are long TSLA, FB, GOOG. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Additional disclosure: The information in this article is general in nature and should not be relied upon as personal financial advice.

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SpaceX's Starlink Will Be Up And Running In 2020: Determining The Winners - Seeking Alpha