SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business has become the biggest driver of the company’s latest quarterly growth, helping Elon Musk’s aerospace company report a net profit of $4.4 billion in the July-September quarter.Revenue more than doubled from a year earlier, rising 161 per cent to $14.6 billion, while spending on infrastructure also increased sharply.The company’s third-quarter results showed a turnaround from the year-ago period, when SpaceX recorded a net loss of $1.1 billion on revenue of $5.6 billion. Adjusted EBITDA, which measures operating performance, rose 306 per cent to $8.8 billion from $2.2 billion.The Super Intelligence (SI) business, covering computing infrastructure, models and software applications, generated $7.6 billion in revenue during the quarter. This was an 830 per cent increase from $813 million in the corresponding period last year.SpaceX said the segment added $6.7 billion in year-on-year revenue through its solutions and infrastructure. Growth was attributed to new cloud services agreements, the acquisition of Cursor and wider adoption of Grok products by enterprise customers and consumers.
Starlink adds 1.6 million subscribers in three months
Connectivity services, led by Starlink, remained another major source of revenue for SpaceX. The segment brought in $5.2 billion in the quarter, marking a 69 per cent increase from $3.1 billion a year earlier. Its operating income rose 99 per cent to $2.4 billion.Starlink’s consumer subscriber base reached 13.6 million as of September 30, compared with 7.2 million a year earlier. It added 1.6 million subscribers during the quarter. Monthly average revenue per user rose to $69 from $66 in the previous quarter.Space-related activities contributed $1.8 billion in revenue, up 6 per cent year-on-year. SpaceX completed 12 customer launches during the July-September period.The company also reported that its first orbital Starship flight delivered 26 Starlink V3 satellites. The deployment added around 10 times the downlink capacity of a Falcon 9 Starlink launch.
Computing capacity expands as investment climbs
SpaceX’s expansion came with a steep rise in capital spending. Capital expenditure stood at $19.6 billion in the third quarter, against $6.9 billion in the same period last year, largely due to investment in computing infrastructure.The company’s computing capacity reached 1.7 gigawatts by September 30, compared with 0.6 gigawatts a year earlier, as it continued building infrastructure for its Super Intelligence business.The chief financial officer said the company intended to pursue expansion while keeping its investments and balance sheet on a disciplined footing.“We are building the infrastructure of the future with discipline–focused on capital efficiency, strong returns on invested capital, and maintaining a robust, investment-grade balance sheet–while moving with the velocity to capture the opportunity in front of us,” the CFO said.
