SpaceX just reported its first earnings as a public company, and the numbers are big. Revenue hit $7.8 billion in the second quarter of 2026, nearly double the $4.1 billion from the same period a year ago. The company's loss shrank to $541 million, down from $1.0 billion, an improvement of $467 million. Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet service, and the company's AI operations drove the growth, though executives flagged concerns, according to Reuters.

On the same day, SpaceX said it plans to offer land-based mobile phone service. That news hit traditional phone companies: AT&T and T-Mobile shares fell between 2.2% and 4% on August 4, 2026. The reason is that SpaceX had already bought wireless spectrum (the radio frequencies that let phones connect to a network) in the U.S. back in 2025, along with certain global mobile services, according to its IPO roadshow presentation dated March 31, 2026. The company's EU prospectus, approved by German regulator BaFin on June 5, 2026, set a maximum IPO share price of $162.00.

Starlink is a money-maker, and that gives SpaceX the cash to push into mobile. In the prior year, SpaceX made about $8 billion in profit on $15 billion to $16 billion in revenue, with Starlink as a key profit generator, Reuters reported in February.

Analysts expected the connectivity segment, which includes Starlink and internet services, to grow revenue by 17.5% from the previous quarter to $3.83 billion in Q2 2026, per estimates cited by Investor's Business Daily on August 3. Looking further ahead, analysts expected the segment to grow revenue by over 50% year-over-year to $4.7 billion in Q3 2026, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence on July 28.

Starlink's satellite network is large, and how it operates matters for both the internet business and the mobile push. Starlink satellites go through three phases: climbing to their target height, waiting in a holding orbit at 380 km, and working at their final position at 550 km. As of SpaceX's last update, about half of its then-over-400 satellites were in their final position, while the other half were still climbing or waiting. The company publishes orbit data on space-track.org so astronomers can plan their observations.

SpaceX has also worked to make its satellites less visible from the ground, teaming up with astronomers toward the goal of making satellites invisible to the naked eye within a week of launch. The main method is a sun visor, similar to a car's sunshade, that blocks sunlight from the brightest parts of the spacecraft. SpaceX said the first satellite with a visor was on the next launch at the time of its update, and that by flight 9 in June all future Starlink satellites would carry visors, per SpaceX updates.

The broader context here is that SpaceX is turning its network of satellites into several different businesses at once. The Q2 results confirm what Wall Street analysts expected about the internet side growing fast. But the mobile phone announcement opens up a much bigger market beyond satellite internet, which is why traditional phone companies saw their stock prices drop. The $8 billion in profit from the prior year means SpaceX can fund this expansion with its own cash, and the spectrum purchase in 2025 shows the mobile plan has been in the works for at least eighteen months.

The loss shrinking by $467 million while revenue nearly doubled tells us SpaceX's costs are growing, but not as fast as its sales. Think of it like a bakery that buys one oven and then sells twice as many loaves: the oven cost stays fixed while revenue rises. Whether that pattern holds when building mobile phone towers and infrastructure gets expensive is the key question for the next few quarters. The analyst forecast of over 50% revenue growth in Q3 2026 suggests the market expects that pattern to continue.

For anyone watching the phone industry, the real question is whether SpaceX's mobile service can get cheap enough and cover enough ground to seriously compete with AT&T and T-Mobile, or whether it stays a smaller, add-on service. The 2.2–4% stock drop on August 4 was modest, suggesting investors see a possible future threat rather than an immediate one. But the spectrum SpaceX already owns and its stated plans to build out mobile service mean the threat is real enough to keep an eye on.