Market Size: Reconciling the Forecasts
How big is the Earth observation market, and why do published forecasts disagree by a factor of two?
Chapter summary
Research firms put the 2025 market at between about $3.8 billion and about $8 billion, and their 2034 forecasts at between about $6 billion and $15.5 billion.
Key takeaways
- 1
The spread comes from definitions: some count only satellite data, some add value-added services and geographic information systems, some add satellite manufacturing.
- 2
Building up from company revenues, Setcoin estimates satellite data plus first-level analytics sold by operators at about $5–6 billion in 2025, of which governments buy about 60–70%.
- 3
Growth of 8–12% a year is plausible to 2030, driven by sovereign defence demand and SAR, not by commercial imagery sales.
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