The company had announced similar pricing for Sri Lanka, where its application was in advanced stages of regulatory clearance.
IMAGE: Kindly note that this image has been posted for representational purposes only. Photograph: King courtesy, Pixabay
Despite India’s large market size, capacity constraints and global costs are expected to dictate Starlink’s pricing strategy for the country, which will be similar to other nations in the subcontinent, official sources said.
In India, Starlink kits are expected to cost about ₹33,000, while monthly subscription may remain between ₹3,000 and ₹4,200, in line with prices announced for neighbouring Bangladesh and Bhutan, where services began in May and February, respectively, they said.
The company had announced similar pricing for Sri Lanka, where its application was in advanced stages of regulatory clearance, they pointed out.
The monthly plans for India may cost slightly more than those in underdeveloped African economies, such as Zimbabwe and Madagascar.
Starlink’s hardware would be available at these prices through retail outlets of telecom operators Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio. Back in April, both had announced separate deals with Starlink to distribute the American firm’s equipment and services in India, for their customers.
People in the know say the company doesn’t have much to gain by dropping the price to attract more customers as internet capacity from satellites will remain capped.
The satellite communication (satcom) giant currently provides services in over 125 countries through a constellation of over 7,600 low earth orbit (LEO) satellites operated by SpaceX, the American spacecraft manufacturer and launch service provider owned by Elon Musk.
The company plans to deploy up to 12,000 satellites to complete its constellation.
It has so far priced its services at two-three times of traditional telcos in both high-income markets like the US and developing economies such as Kenya or Nigeria. As a result, Starlink would remain a premium service given the capacity constraints of satellite-delivered internet, and might be able to cater to only about a million connections in the short-to-medium term, officials said. This is in line with analyst estimates.
In February, a research note by Jefferies had pointed out Starlink’s current capacity might be able to support 0.18 million subscribers in India, but could go up to 5.7 million users by 2030, assuming a 30-time rise in capacity.
Photograph: Kind courtesy Starlink/twitter
Globally, Starlink reported having more than five million customers in February, up from 4.6 million in December 2024, and four million in September 2024. On the other hand, private sector terrestrial operators such as Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (Vi) had 472.4 million, 390 million and 204.7 million mobile broadband users in India, respectively, as of end-April, according to official figures. State-run BSNL had 90.9 million users.
However, telecom operators last month wrote to the government, arguing that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had grossly underestimated the capacities that satcom players wielded.
While the current traffic catered to by Jio, Airtel and Vi was 23,012 million GB/month, the capacity planned for India by Project Kuiper and Starlink was 29,112 million GB/month, the telcos had said.
In April, the satcom operator received provisional registrations from Pakistan’s space regulator, with Islamabad stating on record that it hoped Starlink would receive full clearance and begin operations by end-2025.
In May, Bangladeshi telecom authorities granted necessary licences to Starlink to operate in the country.
Bhutan had been the first country in the subcontinent to get Starlink connectivity back in February.
