A historic shift has taken place in the European space industry: Earth observation satellites (EO) for the first time overtook the telecommunications sector in terms of sales in the first half 2026 year. Telecom, which for decades remained the main commercial engine and source of income for space manufacturers in Europe, gave way to remote sensing technologies.
The change of leaders is caused by several parallel processes in the global and domestic European markets:
Military and geopolitical security: The main driver of sales was the high demand for geospatial intelligence (GEOINT). European satellite operators, such as Airbus with the Pléiades Neo cluster, record a record growth in orders from defense departments of NATO countries and the EU Satellite Center (SatCen).
Climate and environmental monitoring: Institutional customers are investing heavily in climate change data collection programs, natural disasters and renewable energy. The European flagship program Copernicus plays an important role.
Crisis of geostationary (GEO) telecom: Traditional business of large European telecommunications operators (like Eutelsat) is experiencing severe pressure and falling margins due to the rapid expansion of the American low-orbit megagroup Starlink from SpaceX.
According to the latest data from the European Space Agency (EUSPA), the earth observation sector shows the highest dynamics in the industry:
The total revenue of the EO data and services market will grow from €3.5 billion to €7.9 billion by 2034 year.
The main commercial segments of data consumption will be precision agriculture, energy sector, raw material extraction and infrastructure insurance.
The evolution of business models is shifting away from sales “raw” satellite images to the supply of ready-made analytics and forecasts based on artificial intelligence.
To balance the communication market and regain positions in telecom, The EU is currently actively developing its own €10.6 billion IRIS² secure satellite system. It should become a sovereign alternative to Starlink for European governments and militaries.
Source: https://spacenews.com