China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has granted China Unicom a satellite mobile communication business license, according to an announcement on September 8, sparking a surge in satellite internet stocks, reflecting growing momentum in the rapidly advancing satellite internet industry.
With the license, China Unicom can legally carry out services such as direct mobile phone-to-satellite communication, deepen applications in emergency communications, maritime communications, and communications in remote areas, and enrich the supply of communication services and products.
By the close of the market, companies such as Sunwave Communications, China Spacesat, and Shanghai Hugong Electric Group hit the daily limit-up, Piesat Information Technology surged more than 9%, Essence Fastening Systems gained 6.7%, China Unicom jumped 4.8%.
Earlier, on August 27, the MIIT had issued the Guideline on Optimizing Business Access and Promoting the Development of the Satellite Communication Industry,” which mentioned supporting telecom operators to explore the potential applications of high-orbit satellites through co-construction and sharing models with satellite companies, promoting the accelerated adoption of mobile phones and other terminal devices directly connected to satellites, and providing voice and short message services based on satellites for a wide range of terrestrial mobile communication users.
China’s satellite internet construction has entered a comprehensive acceleration phase. Since 2024, the China Satnet’s GW Constellation has begun network deployment and launches in batches; as of the end of August 2025, it has successfully launched 3 high-orbit and 10 low-orbit networking satellites. Since July 2025, it has completed six high-frequency networked launches within nearly a month. In addition, the commercial networking satellite “QianFan Constellation” has completed five launches with 18 satellites each, bringing the total number of launched satellites to 90.
The MIIT noted that as China’s satellite mobile communication industry chain commercializes at an accelerating pace, it will help form a moderately competitive and healthy market pattern, making satellite mobile communication services more accessible to ordinary users, and at the same time, the coordination and linkage between basic telecom enterprises and upstream and downstream players in the satellite mobile communication industry chain will become closer, which is conducive to promoting industrial transformation and upgrading, and enhancing the resilience and security of the industry chain and supply chain.
Going forward, the MIIT will coordinate development and security, further optimize market access for satellite communications, strengthen full-chain regulation and security guarantees, promote the high-quality development of China’s satellite communication industry, and strongly support the construction of a strong network nation, a strong aerospace nation, and a digital China, the ministry said.
AVIC Securities noted that China has entered the stage of space infrastructure construction for high-orbit satellite internet and is expected to achieve rapid expansion in emerging commercial markets such as aviation internet, maritime internet, and emergency communications, as well as in traditional satellite TV broadcasting.
The development of the low-orbit satellite internet industry will mainly be driven by the demand for orbital and spectrum resources, and coupled with the expansion of consumer-level applications such as mobile phone and automobile direct connections, this is conducive to broadening downstream application scenarios, and the industry’s market ceiling may be further raised, it said.
From an investment perspective, the institution said that the current valuation levels of most listed companies in the sector are high, with funds rapidly rotating around core links such as satellite manufacturing and payload support, and with the large-scale deployment of China’s satellite internet, the market is expected to gradually shift from “launch event narratives” to the substantive verification of “user penetration rate and revenue contribution.”