April 14 - Amazon.com said it will acquire Globalstar in a transaction valued at $11.57 billion, a deal that adds a small, existing low-Earth orbit satellite operator to the retailer's growing space-communications effort. Under the terms announced, holders of Globalstar stock may elect to receive either $90 in cash or 0.3210 shares of Amazon common stock for every share they own.
The announcement pushed Globalstar shares higher in premarket trading, up more than 9% following a period of price gains. The company had seen its shares climb a little more than 6% across the two weeks prior to reports of acquisition talks. Over the prior year the stock nearly doubled in value, and it had risen roughly 12% so far this year before the acquisition news emerged.
Amazon outlined ambitious deployment targets for its satellite initiative, planning roughly 3,200 satellites in low-Earth orbit by 2029. The company said approximately half of that planned constellation needs to be in place by a July 2026 regulatory deadline. Amazon currently operates a network of more than 200 satellites and said it expects to begin offering satellite internet services later this year.
The satellite program began as Project Kuiper in 2019 and is now referred to as Amazon Leo, a program launched by founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos. The planned scale of Amazon's network aims to close some of the gap with existing large-scale providers; SpaceX's Starlink operates a fleet of more than 10,000 satellites and serves in excess of nine million users worldwide.
Covington, Louisiana-based Globalstar operates roughly two dozen low-Earth orbit satellites and is known for powering Apple's Emergency SOS feature. Late last year Globalstar said an Apple-backed network under development would expand its constellation to 54 satellites, including a small number of backups.
Globalstar provides voice, data, and asset-tracking services to customers across enterprise, government, and consumer markets. The acquisition brings a small, operational satellite footprint together with Amazon's larger deployment plans as the company moves to scale its service offerings in the coming years.
Note: This article reports the terms and details released about the agreement and the deployment plans as stated by the companies.