Starlink slashes prices for Nigerians as Elon Musk guns for giant marketshare

Elon Musk’s satellite company, SpaceX, has slashed the costs of its hardware and subscription plan to N274,098 and N19,260 per monthly, respectively.

Recall that it was earlier reported that Starlink had fixed $600 and $43 dollar as the cost of its hardware and monthly subscription, respectively, amounting to about N438,000 and N31,000 at the parallel market rate.

Some Nigerians who pre-ordered the hardware last year paid the initial amount in dollars. But the company’s prices are now quoted in naira, which means that Nigerians can make payments using their naira debit card.

First in Africa: With the official announcement, Nigeria becomes the first African country to witness the launch of Starlink.

Responding to SpaceX tweet announcing the development, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami said:

• “We have made it again. @SpaceX thank you for hosting me in your Headquarters, USA in December 2022 to complete the logistics for the deployment.”

Recall that the Minister had last week stated that Nigeria has achieved 100% broadband coverage with the operation of Starlink, whose satellite service covers the length and breadth of the country. According to him, through the National Broadband Plan (NBP 2020-2025) Nigeria was targeting 90% broadband coverage by the year 2025 and this has been achieved ahead of time through the licensing of Starlink as Nigerians can now have access to high-speed internet from any part of the country.

Increased competition: With the price slash, the competition in the internet service provisioning space in Nigeria is expected to get stiffer as Starlink is now challenging the likes of MTN, Airtel, Globacom, 9mobile, and hundreds of Internet Service Providers in Nigeria providing services via different technology, including fibre and satellite.

Starlink’s speed is its selling point: The company said on its website that Nigerians on Starlink will see download speeds of 50-200 Mbps. One of the early users of the service in Nigeria, Bello Gbadebo had attested to speed saying that he got about 20Mbps on the initial test and it went up to about 240Mbps afterward.

Quadri Olaitan