Although tech giant Amazon (AMZN) competes with SpaceX in the satellite internet market, it turned to Elon Musk‘s aerospace company in order to launch the next batch of its Kuiper satellites. Indeed, on Wednesday morning, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 24 of Amazon’s Kuiper satellites into space from Florida. About an hour later, SpaceX confirmed that all the satellites were deployed successfully. This is interesting because SpaceX’s Starlink service is the leader in satellite internet, with about 8,000 satellites and 5 million customers.
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Nevertheless, Amazon publicly thanked SpaceX for the launch in a LinkedIn post by Panos Panay, who leads Amazon’s devices and services, including Kuiper. It is worth noting that Amazon launched Project Kuiper in 2019 with the goal of building a network of over 3,000 satellites. In addition, the company is working under a deadline from U.S. regulators, which requires 1,600 satellites to be in orbit by July 2026. So far, Amazon has launched three groups of satellites to bring its total to 78 satellites in orbit. To meet its goal, Amazon has lined up as many as 83 future launches, including more with SpaceX.
Project Kuiper is now one of Amazon’s biggest bets, with more than $10 billion already invested. According to Bank of America, Amazon could end up spending as much as $23 billion to fully build the satellite network, not including the cost of the devices people will use to connect. In fact, this year alone, Amazon is expected to spend around $150 million per launch and $1.1 billion on building satellites. Nevertheless, analysts say that the satellite internet market could reach $40 billion by 2030.
What Is the Price Target for AMZN Stock?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on Amazon stock based on 44 Buys and one Hold assigned in the past three months. Furthermore, the average AMZN stock price target of $251.44 per share implies 12.7% upside potential from current levels.
