Amazon and Apple have also signed a separate agreement for Amazon Leo to continue powering satellite features on iPhone and Apple Watch. The deal gives Amazon the spectrum, infrastructure, and operational expertise to launch direct-to-device satellite services from 2028, and compresses years of development into a single transaction.

Amazon has agreed to acquire Globalstar in an approximately $11.6 billion deal, the companies announced on Tuesday, confirming weeks of reported negotiations.

Under the terms, Globalstar shareholders can elect to receive either $90 per share in cash or Amazon stock capped at the same value, a 23.5% premium over Globalstar’s Monday closing price. Cash elections are capped at 40% of total shares, with excess automatically converted to stock. The deal is expected to close in 2027, subject to regulatory approvals.

Approximately 58% of Globalstar’s combined voting power has already approved the transaction by written consent. Alongside the acquisition, Amazon and Apple have signed a separate agreement for Amazon Leo, Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite network, to continue powering satellite features on iPhone and Apple Watch, including Emergency SOS via satellite, Messages, Find My, and Roadside Assistance.

Globalstar currently provides those services for iPhone 14 and later and Apple Watch Ultra 3, under a partnership backed by Apple’s $1.5 billion investment in Globalstar in 2024, which gave Apple approximately a 20% equity stake and rights to 85% of Globalstar’s network capacity.

That Apple agreement was the central complication in the pre-announcement reporting: no acquisition could proceed without resolving how the world’s most safety-critical iPhone feature would continue to function. The dual announcement resolves it.

What Amazon is really buying is spectrum and time. Globalstar holds globally harmonised L-band and S-band spectrum licences, finite radio frequencies that cannot be replicated simply by launching more satellites, and that are essential for direct-to-device (D2D) services: the ability to reach a mobile phone directly from a satellite without specialist hardware.

Amazon Leo currently has roughly 180 to 200 satellites in orbit. Starlink, operated by SpaceX, has more than 10,000. Amazon has committed approximately $17 billion in capital expenditure to building Leo and was already under FCC pressure over a mid-2026 deployment deadline.

Acquiring Globalstar’s operational infrastructure, ground station network spanning 24 global gateways, and licensed spectrum across more than 120 countries compresses years of internal development into a single transaction.

Beginning in 2028, Amazon Leo will deploy its own next-generation D2D satellite system designed to deliver voice, data, and messaging directly to mobile phones and cellular devices at substantially higher spectrum efficiency than existing direct-to-cell systems.

Globalstar’s existing satellite fleet and its new satellites, being manufactured by MDA Space, will operate alongside Amazon Leo’s broadband system to form a unified network. Amazon says the complete Leo network will have enough capacity to support hundreds of millions of customer endpoints globally.

Globalstar, which has operated for more than 30 years, turned profitable in 2025 with $273 million in revenue. Its CEO Paul Jacobs framed the deal as a logical culmination of the company’s long-term vision for connecting users anywhere and anytime.

Apple’s Greg Joswiak cited the Emergency SOS service’s track record, it has helped save lives including a scout troop stranded on a winter hike in British Columbia and a woman airlifted to safety in Colorado after her car rolled down a 250-foot cliff, and confirmed that Amazon and Apple have a long existing relationship through AWS.