Amazon said on Tuesday it would acquire Globalstar in an $11.57bn deal, a move meant to strengthen its still-growing space business as it tries to take on Elon Musk-led Starlink.
At the center of the plan is access to Globalstar’s network—two dozen satellites currently in orbit. That matters because Amazon is pushing to build a much larger presence in Earth’s low orbit, where satellite internet lives and where the competition is getting more intense. Starlink, meanwhile, is already operating at scale, with about 10,000 units in orbit and serving more than 9 million users globally.
The terms are straightforward, at least on paper. Under the deal, Globalstar shareholders can choose $90 in cash or 0.3210 shares of Amazon common stock for each share of Globalstar they own. Globalstar is Louisiana-based, and for many people it’s familiar for another reason: the company’s technology underpins Apple’s “emergency SOS” feature.
Amazon says it plans to ramp up its own network by deploying about 3,200 satellites by 2029, with roughly half required to be in place by a July 2026 regulatory deadline. It already operates a network of more than 200 satellites and is preparing to roll out its satellite internet services later this year. If this sounds like a sprint, it’s because in low-Earth orbit you don’t really get to “slow down” without falling behind—sometimes the work is literally happening while the paperwork is still moving.
Globalstar, for its part, operates about two dozen satellites in low-Earth orbit. Late last year, it said a new, Apple-backed network under development would expand that to 54 satellites, including a small number of backups. Beyond consumer features, Globalstar offers voice, data, and asset-tracking services across enterprise, government and consumer markets. And in a parallel move, Amazon and Apple—together having invested about $1.5bn in Globalstar—have signed an agreement to keep powering satellite-based safety features, including Emergency SOS and Find My, for iPhone and Apple Watch users.
The acquisition is expected to close next year, but it’s not just a handshake and a launch. It will depend on regulatory approvals and on Globalstar meeting specific satellite deployment milestones. So, depending on how those milestones land, the “challenge to Starlink” could look different across regions and timelines. Somewhere in the background, you can almost picture the hum of a control room—screens glowing, keyboards clicking—while engineers check whether a satellite is where it’s supposed to be.
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