{"id":604216,"date":"2026-04-14T21:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T21:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/604216\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T21:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T21:08:08","slug":"amazon-to-buy-satellite-firm-globalstar-for-11-57bn-in-challenge-to-musks-starlink-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/604216\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon to buy satellite firm Globalstar for $11.57bn in challenge to Musk\u2019s Starlink | Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Amazon said on Tuesday it would acquire a satellite company in an $11.57bn deal, bolstering its own fledgling space business as it looks to take on Elon Musk-led bigger rival Starlink.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The deal gives Amazon access to Globalstar\u2019s network of two dozen satellites, boosting the tech giant\u2019s ambitions to challenge <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/spacex\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SpaceX<\/a> unit Starlink, which currently has about 10,000 units in orbit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Under the deal, the satellite firm\u2019s shareholders can elect to receive either $90 in cash or 0.3210 shares of Amazon common stock for each share of Globalstar they own, the companies said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Amazon has been working to ramp up its network by deploying about 3,200 satellites in Earth\u2019s low orbit by 2029, with roughly half required to be in place by a July 2026 regulatory deadline. The company currently operates a network of more than 200 satellites and is preparing to roll out its satellite internet services later this year. In contrast, Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink \u2013 the dominant satellite-based internet service provider \u2013 already serves more than 9 million users globally.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Louisiana-based Globalstar, popular as the service that powers Apple\u2019s \u201cemergency SOS\u201d feature, 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Globalstar offers voice, data, and asset-tracking services to customers across the enterprise, government and consumer markets. In a parallel move, Amazon and Apple \u2013 which has invested about $1.5bn in Globalstar \u2013 have signed an agreement to continue powering the satellite-based safety features, such as Emergency SOS and Find My, for iPhone and Apple Watch users.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The acquisition is expected to close next year, subject to regulatory approvals and achievement of specific satellite deployment milestones by Globalstar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amazon said on Tuesday it would acquire a satellite company in an $11.57bn deal, bolstering its own fledgling&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,66,306],"class_list":{"0":"post-604216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}