Record Breaking Uptake of Starlink in Africa Reminds Us Again of the Continent’s Untapped Potential

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According to the latest quarterly update from Zimbabwe’s Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (POTRAZ), VSAT subscriptions — including subscriptions to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite services — jumped 513.79% in Q4 of 2024. In POTRAZ’s report, Starlink subscriptions have been grouped with traditional VSAT providers. The POTRAZ report says that this record jump from 3,814 subscriptions in Q3 2024 to 23,410 in Q4 2024 is attributed to the entry of Starlink in Zimbabwe. Starlink got almost 20,000 signups in just 3 months at the end of Q4 2024. This number could have been much higher had it not been for the fact that Starlink capacity was sold out pretty quickly in Zimbabwe’s main urban centres. Of course, Starlink is an ideal proposition for less densely populated areas such as rural or remote areas, helping address the infrastructure divide by enabling high speed internet access in the remotest of places.

However, countries like Zimbabwe are in a unique position because access to fibre internet is still quite low, and in most urban areas where it is present, monthly packages from local ISPs are quite pricey and beyond the reach of many. For decent speeds, and “uncapped” home or office packages, subscriptions could be in the hundreds of dollars per month. Starlink for $30 to $50 per month, depending on the package, vs. $100 to $500 per month (depending on the package) for home fibre packages in this market? It’s a no-brainer for those who can get Starlink. Even after factoring in the initial purchase cost of the Starlink kit, you can get a payback time of a few months.

The POTRAZ report also stated that the number active fibre subscriptions in Zimbabwe at the end of December 2024 was 79,416, which is pretty low for a country with a population of over 16 million people. It should also be noted that according to recent data, about 67% of the country’s population lives in rural areas. Back to Starlink, it has taken over a decade for local active fibre subscriptions to reach 80,000, but Starlink added 20,000 subscriptions in just three months! That’s 25% of the active Fibre subscriptions. Although the majority of users accessing internet services in Zimbabwe do so via mobile phone (around 12 million active subscribers), the rapid uptake of Starlink shows the untapped potential in this market that is currently not served by a fibre connection.

Starlink is now available in about 19 countries in Africa. TechZim reports that as of the end of Q1 2025, Starlink had 336,000 subscribers in those countries. Starlink had about 237,000 at the end of Q4 2024, and therefore gained around 100,000 subscribers in those countries in just three months. Globally, Starlink has about 5.4 million subscribers in about 124 countries. That means 6.2% of Starlink subscriptions at the moment are in Africa. This number could be much higher if Starlink adds more capacity in current markets and also adds new markets on the continent soon. 6% of the global market is still a pretty good indicator of the potential in this market especially given the large population living in remote areas on the continent compared to most other markets. Another thing I found interesting is that at the moment, about 8.5% of Starlink subscriptions in Africa are in Zimbabwe.

Using Zimbabwe as a case study here, we can see that the rise of Starlink is similar to the rise of satellite TV in the country and shows how quickly a good solution that is priced just right can get adoption insanely quickly, showing the immense potential in underserved markets. Zimbabwe had essentially one TV station for decades, which was a national television station. Programming on this station was not the best. Well, it was actually quite bad. This led people to desperately look for alternatives. The ones with more disposable income flocked to DSTv, which is a South African based premium pay TV satellite service that has packages of up to $80 per month or thereabouts for the full bouquet of channels, including all the main international live sports channels. The majority rushed to get decoders that could receive regional channels from neighbouring countries that have great content. In most cases, there was just a one-off fee for the decoder. This opportunity led to over 3 million Zimbabweans adopting satellite TV services. 3 million satellite dishes at a time when the country had a total population of under 15 million shows us the strong levels of adoption.

Perhaps it is due to this mass adoption of satellite TV that Zimbabweans and millions more around the continent view satellite services as part of normal solution providers. This is probably playing a key role in the success of Starlink as satellite services became standard in most homes. Satellite internet is really the next thing once they were already used to satellite TV. People adopted satellite TV in the quest to find better quality programming, and to fill a gap where terrestrial TV stations could not reach due to limited funding to expand infrastructure. The same thing is playing out now with Starlink stepping in to fill the same infrastructure gap, thereby complementing local fibre ISPs, and also providing the added benefit of lower monthly subscriptions than those local ISPs.

An example of filling a big gap via the provision of internet connectivity where it is needed most can also be found in Zimbabwe. Whereas capacity in major urban centres was filled in record time, a quiet revolution is happening in the rural areas. A number of business, hospitals, schools, and homes are getting Starlink, joining the age of good internet connectivity for the first time. A good example is the increasing number of rural schools adopting Starlink. Schools in Zimbabwe just reopened for the start of the second term of the year and one of the official retailers of Starlink in Zimbabwe has taken the opportunity to run a “Back to School” promotion for rural schools. In a post on X, they said they have just received a shipment of 6,000 Starlink mini kits and schools can get them for $220. Those same rural schools would have had to pay thousands of dollars to traditional VSAT providers. Remember in the beginning of the article we mentioned there were now just about 3,814 traditional VSAT customers in the entire country. We can see this retailer is supplying 6,000 Starlink units in one shipment. It just goes to show how big the opportunities are in Africa for products and services addressing critical needs at the right prices.