Amazon is one of the largest, wealthiest business enterprises in the world. This is mostly due to their willingness to branch out and try nearly anything. Not all of their ventures have been extremely profitable, such as the lackluster Fire Phone, but many others have been extremely fruitful, allowing Amazon to branch beyond what they originally were in e-commerce, and into B2B commerce, smart speakers, digital advertising, and cloud computing. Yes, all of these financial ventures have been very successful, but they certainly won’t be Amazon’s crowning achievement; if their next plan works out, that is.
Now, Amazon is looking to expand its reach beyond the planet on which they are based. That’s right, Bezos and Amazon want to take their lucrative business practices into space. It could potentially make them more money than anything else to date.
It’s called Project Kuiper: a plan to launch 3,236 satellites into Earth’s orbit, for the sole purpose of providing internet to everyone the planet. Not just any internet, but high-speed, high-quality internet, anywhere in the world. The reason this plan can make so much money is because it will allow Amazon to reach billions of people around the world that have either never had internet or who at least never had any reliable, quality internet.
Chad Anderson, CEO of venture capital firm Space Angels, puts it best. “You can see the clear profit motive here for Amazon: 4 billion new customers. Already, there’s been a lot of value in connecting these people to the global economy.”
Amazon hired Rajeev Badyal, the former vice president for SpaceX satellites, as well as members of his team in order to lead the project. These individuals managed to launch two SpaceX satellites last year, so they’re certainly qualified for the job.
Amazon outright confirmed its plans, stating that “Project Kuiper is a new initiative to launch a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites that will provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to unserved and underserved communities around the world.”
An analyst from Morgan Stanley, Adam Jonas, believes that this will be one of Amazon’s most lucrative opportunities. He believes the value of the space economy will grow from around $350 billion to around $1.1 trillion by 2040, due to the increasing need for space-based telecommunication networks.
However, none of this will come about anytime soon. The estimated timeline for a project of this size is ay least 10 years out.
