In a year and a half, Elon Musk's Starlink, a satellite internet company, has almost tripled in size. Today it has almost as many customers as the North American giant Hughes and has surpassed Sky/AT&T. Data from Anatel (National Telecommunications Agency) shows that between May 2023 and February of this year, the company went from 57,605 satellite broadband accesses to 149,615 (260% growth), most of them in more remote regions such as the Amazon and the Midwest.
Musk approached the Brazilian market during Jair Bolsonaro's government and began operating in the country interested in connecting schools in the Amazon. The operating license was granted by Anatel two years ago, and in the first six months, it entered the list of the top 50 in broadband supply. In May 2023, it occupied position 42 with 57,605 access points—0.1% of market share.
Two months later, it already had 90,763 accesses, leaving Sky/AT&T behind with 64,674 accesses. In February of this year, the most recent data, Starlink recorded 149,615 active accesses, representing 0.3% of the total. With this performance, it approaches the North American giant Hughes, which operates in the country with 180,259 accesses. Claro, Vivo, and Oi lead in offering broadband internet connections, but in the vast majority, access is through fixed networks.