By Al Root
SpaceX's Starlink is, well, miles above its competition. That doesn't mean competitors have given up. Jeff Bezos appears set on taking a slice of Elon Musk's space pie.
Amazon.com has selected Kenya to host its inaugural satellite ground station in Africa, according to reports. Amazon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The announcement represents one step on Amazon's path to build a Starlink competitor.
Starlink is SpaceX's space-based broadband product with some 10,000 satellites and 10 million-plus subscribers. Starlink generated first-quarter 2026 revenue of $3.3 billion, up 32% year over year. Operating profit was $1.2 billion, up 15%.
Starlink isn't only satellites. Ground stations, which SpaceX calls Gateways, are used to bounce data between Starlink users and satellites. SpaceX has hundreds of ground stations around the world.
The Kenya partnership will help Amazon deliver service in that region of the world -- eventually. Amazon has about 330 satellites in orbit. It's tough to get satellites into orbit for anyone other than SpaceX, the world's dominant launch services provider.
Amazon has several launch partners, including SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. The latter has recently had trouble with its New Glenn rocket. In April, it failed to deploy an AST SpaceMobile satellite correctly. In May, a rocket explosion damaged ground infrastructure in a significant blow to launch cadence.
Catching SpaceX isn't easy, but Amazon, Blue Origin, and Jeff Bezos aren't giving up.
Amazon stock was up 0.6% in premarket trading on Tuesday, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 0.4% and 0.2%, respectively. AST stock was up 6.2% at $97.73.
Shares were north of $133 before the Blue Origin New Glenn explosion. AST is using New Glenn to build its space-based communications network.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
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June 09, 2026 08:33 ET (12:33 GMT)
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