Elon Musk’s Starlink has arrived in Ukraine. Now, both the iOS and Android Starlink apps dominate the country’s top charts. We used our App Watchlist platform to dig into the details!

When conflict broke out in Ukraine, there was concern that communications channels across the country would soon be severed, further isolating the country in its hour of need. So, Mykhailo Fedorov, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, took to Twitter to plead his country’s case before Elon Musk, asking the entrepreneur to provide Starlink stations.

Musk responded shortly thereafter, noting that the Starlink service had been activated in Ukraine and that additional terminals were en route. On February 28th, 2022, just two days after the initial Twitter interaction, the first shipment of Starlink satellites arrived in the country. Then, on March 9th, a second batch arrived, followed by a third on March 15th.

Now, despite some rather serious warnings about the potential risks of using Starlink — specifically that satellite transmissions from the ground could be triangulated and targeted by the Russian military — the Starlink app has been astonishingly successful in Ukraine over the last 15 to 20 days.

In this article, we use our App Watchlist to analyze the meteoric rise of Starlink across Ukraine. In particular, we examined downloads and top chart rankings for the iOS and Android versions of the app.

Here’s what we cover (click the links below to jump to the relevant sections):

• What Is Starlink?
• Analysis of the Starlink App’s Performance in Ukraine
• Downloads in Ukraine (February 21st, 2022 - March 15th, 2022)
• Top Chart Rankings in Ukraine (February 25th, 2022 - March 17th, 2022)
• Final Thoughts
  

What Is Starlink?

Starlink is a division of SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer and provider of space transportation services. It provides high-speed, low-latency broadband Internet across the globe via a ‘constellation’ of over 2,000 orbital satellites.

Offering download speeds of 100 Mb/s - 200 Mb/s and latency as low as 20ms in most locations, Starlink can be used for video calls, online gaming, streaming, and other high data rate activities that have not historically been possible with satellite Internet. As such, it’s particularly valuable to people living in rural areas and other parts of the world who don’t already have access to high-speed broadband.

To get started, users will need a Starlink dish to receive signals from the ‘constellation’ and pass the bandwidth on to their routers. The company offers a number of mounting options and the Starlink app leverages augmented reality to help users identify the best locations and positions for their receivers.

Analysis of the Starlink App’s Performance in Ukraine

Since the initial shipment of Starlink arrived in Ukraine, the app has been making its way to the top of the country’s app markets. Check it out, here are the overall top charts for iOS apps in Ukraine on March 14th, 2022:

Compare this to its ranking on a preceding day:

As you can see, not only has Starlink topped the App Store’s charts, it climbed 38 positions to do so — quite literally overnight!

So, with this in mind, let’s dig a little deeper…

Downloads in Ukraine (February 21st, 2022 - March 15th, 2022)

Above you’ll find daily downloads for the iOS (blue) and Android (yellow) versions of Starlink. In particular, this chart depicts downloads in Ukraine between February 21st, 2022 and March 15th, 2022.

In total, Ukranians downloaded Starlink 90,878 times in the period charted above. This includes 62,274 iOS downloads and 28,604 Android downloads.

Notably, the app first took off on February 27th, the day after Fedorov and Musk exchanged their initial tweets. Following the arrival of the first Starlink shipment on February 28th, daily downloads for the iOS app surpassed 5,000. That’s a near 136% increase over night. Most recently, the app was downloaded 5,602 times on March 14th and 5,360 times on March 15th.

While the Android app was a little slower to take off, it eventually reached 3,545 downloads on March 6th. Three days later, the second shipment of Starlink receivers reached Ukraine. As of March 15th, downloads are trending upwards of 2,500 per day.

It’s also worth pointing out that Starlink downloads in Ukraine preceded Fedorov’s exchange with Musk. Indeed, between February 21st, when the earliest Ukrainian Starlink downloads were recorded, and February 26th, the iOS version of the app was downloaded 2,329 times per day, while the Android version was holding firm at approximately 500 downloads per day. This is despite the fact that the app was not available in the country prior to February 26th.

Before we move on, we’d like to draw your attention to how Ukraine impacted Starlink’s global downloads. Below we’ve charted global downloads for both versions of the app in the period between January 1st, 2022 and March 17th, 2022.

As you can see, even global downloads were modest prior to Ukraine’s adoption. Neither the iOS nor the Android version of the app ever came close to surpassing 5,000 daily downloads.

Then, between February 20th and February 22nd, there was a sudden 422% increase in downloads. March 6th then saw the apps combine for 17,016 downloads in a single day. And finally, and perhaps most remarkably, despite only just joining the Starlink family, Ukraine already accounts for approximately 26% of Starlink’s global downloads in 2022 thus far.

Top Chart Rankings in Ukraine (February 25th, 2022 - March 17th, 2022)

As touched on above, Starlink’s rise in the top charts has also been remarkable. Above, you’ll find Ukrainian top chart rankings for both versions of the app in the ‘Utilities’ category over the last 30 days.

Neither app was ranked before February 27th. However, the iOS app made its chart debut by ranking third. The next day, it claimed the top spot, where it sat for five consecutive days. While it fell in the rankings a bit, it never fell out of the top twenty five and is now once again rallying upwards. As of today, it’s back at the top of the ‘Utilities’ rankings.

The Android app has been a little more up and down. It debuted at 201 in the ‘Utilities’ ranking, but quickly hit the number eight spot on March 3rd. Currently, it too sits atop the charts.

Final Thoughts

As we noted in last week’s blog post on the surging popularity of VPN apps in Russia, geopolitics is by no means our bread and butter. That said, our mobile app intelligence solutions provide us with a unique, ground-level view of certain events.

For instance, the Starlink episode generated a ton of conversation online. One would assume, based on the disproportionate amount of coverage it received, that it was a moment of great magnitude for the Ukrainian effort. Now, that may prove to be the case — and there’s something to be said about having an asset like Starlink in your back pocket in times of geopolitical strife — but it’s by no means apparent.

What we can say with certainty, however, is that an astonishing number of Ukranians have adopted Starlink in a remarkably short timeframe.