Commercial satellite firm Geespace Technology wins a rare licence to turn tiny packets of data into recurring revenue.
By Zan Zhu
On Aug. 20, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published a brief approval: Zhejiang Geespace Technology was cleared to run commercial trials of satellite Internet-of-Things (IoT) services for two years. The approval is significant: it is only the second such license issued in China, and Geespace, the commercial space subsidiary of electric vehicle giant Geely, is the sole private company holding one.
The policy backdrop is shifting. On Sept. 7, the ministry’s 15th Five-Year Plan for information and communications called for deeper satellite IoT trials, applications linking devices and vehicles across land, sea, air, and space, and stronger standards and technology validation.
The question for the industry is no longer whether satellites can reach orbit, but how connectivity becomes recurring revenue once they do.
From offshore buoys to oilfields
In Huizhou’s Daya Bay petrochemical zone, two navigation buoys suffered frequent signal interference and delayed data returns. Shantou’s navigation-mark authority and Geespace fitted them with low-orbit satellite IoT terminals and a “4G plus satellite” dual-link redundant architecture. During a three-month trial through August, nearly 5,000 data transmissions were completed, with an overall success rate of 99.67%.
The lesson is commercial: satellites do not need to replace terrestrial networks; they can become a second link in critical scenarios. “The ideal state for many industrial customers is not choosing one communication method, but letting different networks handle different tasks,” said Wang Yang, Geespace’s CEO.
On a Zhejiang maritime patrol vessel, terminals installed in March completed nearly 200 data packets by September, each up to 115 bytes, with an overall success rate above 99%. Such volumes would be negligible for broadband communications, but they are sufficient for applications such as transmitting a vessel’s location. The value of satellite IoT lies in ensuring that critical data gets through.
Small packets, big demand
Geespace is betting that scattered, low-volume connections add up. It has extended capabilities into marine, energy, construction machinery, water conservancy, forestry and low-altitude sectors.
In oil and gas, Geespace and China National Petroleum Corp. set up a joint laboratory for low-orbit satellite constellation IoT applications and tested terminals at two major oilfields. Results showed 94.5% of data communications had latency under five minutes, 99% under mi10nutes, and success rates above 99% at two- and five-minute intervals.
The question for Geespace is whether thousands or millions of devices transmitting tiny amounts of data can support a viable satellite network and create a big enough revenue stream.
Iridium offers an answer. Its 66-satellite network carried more than 2.09 million commercial IoT data subscribers in the first half of 2026; commercial IoT data revenue reached $181 million in 2025, against total revenue of $872 million.
The model depends less on how much data each terminal sends than on the number of terminals, the duration of their subscriptions and the value of the applications they support.
“A terminal may transmit only a few hundred bytes a day, or even less,” Wang said. “But if that represents millions or tens of millions of devices, the overall scale of network connections is still enormous.”
From building a constellation to running a network
Geespace’s scenarios span 10 major areas including intelligent connected vehicles, marine fisheries, construction machinery, smart water management, energy, emergency communications and low-altitude mobility. Wang said construction machinery alone is a multi-million-unit installed base with steady annual additions. “Our goal is not to pick the largest of a dozen scenarios, but to make satellite IoT a general connectivity capability in these industries’ infrastructure,” he said.
That requires a fundamental shift in business model. Traditional satellite projects can be delivered one contract at a time. A satellite IoT network, by contrast, needs large numbers of terminals to remain connected over time to generate economies of scale.
The structural problem for constellation firms is the cash cycle: satellites cannot wait for revenue, and revenue depends on coverage. Geespace’s new commercial-trial approval as the dividing line. Before the license was awarded, the company was building its network and conducting technical validation. Now it can provide satellite IoT communications commercially and establish longer-term relationships with customers.
Geespace has finished the first phase of its constellation. The next task is expanding the number of terminal users and partners so more industrial equipment joins the network. Its valuation increasingly rests not only on how many satellites it has, but on how many terminals and industries the network can serve, and the long-term cash flow that follows. The two-year trial is a window into that transition.
The company has also begun looking overseas. In 2024, it conducted its first overseas commercial deployment test with Oman-based satellite communications company Azyan Telecom, achieving a 99.15% communication success rate and network availability above 99.97%. Wang said Geespace has partnerships with operators in more than 20 countries and expects orders in the Middle East, South America, and other markets to accelerate in 2026.
The ultimate question is no longer how many satellites it can put into orbit, but how many devices the network can connect — and whether those connections can generate recurring revenue at scale.
Source: chinaventure.com.cn
