Satellite Services Revenues to Climb 44% to $145 Billion by 2035, Novaspace Forecasts

Global satellite services revenues will grow 44% to reach $145 billion by 2035, driven by high-throughput data connectivity overtaking legacy broadcast video as the sector's primary earner. Novaspace published the projection on October 12, 2026, in the 33rd edition of its Satellite Connectivity and Video Market report.

The benchmark study describes a structural transformation across the commercial satellite sector over the next decade. It identifies an accelerating shift away from linear television broadcasting toward broadband and enterprise data transport, with data-centric services forecast to approach $100 billion by 2035.

Data services are projected to expand from 26% of total satellite sector revenues to 68% over the forecast period. Video distribution's share of overall capacity revenues is expected to contract to 3% by 2035, a decline Novaspace attributes to cord-cutting across traditional direct-to-home platforms. The report notes that while non-geostationary orbit mega-constellations continue to exert downward pressure on wholesale megabit pricing, fleet operators are maintaining high-value broadcast and secure trunking corridors through geostationary satellites fitted with software-defined payloads.

Novaspace models substantial volume and value expansion across specialized connectivity verticals. Consumer broadband will add $22.6 billion in new annual revenue, military satellite communications will contribute $19.2 billion, and enterprise networks will expand by $17.2 billion. The wholesale satellite capacity market will surpass $46 billion by 2035, more than tripling from 2025 levels.

Consumer broadband and government MILSATCOM combined will account for more than half of all satellite capacity revenues by the end of the forecast period, according to the report. Novaspace analysts stressed that operator success will increasingly depend on hybrid network orchestration rather than single-orbit deployments.

"Satellite connectivity is moving firmly into the mainstream," said Dimitri Buchs, project manager and editor of the report at Novaspace. "The future of satellite communications will not be GEO or NGSO, it will increasingly be an ecosystem in which each architecture serves distinct and complementary requirements."

The report concludes that as bandwidth commoditization continues across consumer tiers, sustained operator margins will migrate toward integrated flat-panel user terminals, direct-to-device non-terrestrial network standards, and secure multi-orbit managed service packages. Novaspace frames this migration as the central condition for maintaining profitability as wholesale pricing falls.

Novaspace points to continued pressure on wholesale megabit pricing from NGSO constellations and the rebalancing of revenue toward data as the developments to monitor over the coming decade, alongside the adoption of direct-to-device NTN standards and multi-orbit managed services.