Amazon’s grand ambitions are now in full view, this analyst says

Roth Capital Markets analyst Rohit Kulkarni maintained his “Buy” rating and $285.00 target on Amazon (Amazon Stock Quote, Chart, News, Analysts, Financials NASDAQ:AMZN), saying the company’s proposed roughly $12-billion acquisition of Globalstar could mark a much broader push into connectivity, edge computing and AI infrastructure than the market is currently pricing in.

Kulkarni said in an April 14 report, that the deal materially de-risks Amazon’s spectrum position and strengthens Project Kuiper by adding satellite infrastructure, licensed spectrum and a faster path to hybrid satellite-terrestrial services.

He said the move goes well beyond broadband and could support applications across logistics, IoT, defence, enterprise networking and edge AI inference through AWS.

“Amazon is positioning for a broader connectivity + services platform,” he wrote.

He added that Amazon now appears to be entering the most execution-heavy phase of the buildout.

“We think Amazon is entering the capital-intensive ‘catch-up phase,’ where execution risk is highest,” Kulkarni said, estimating roughly $6-billion in capital spending and $4-billion in operating expense to launch about 1,600 low-earth-orbit satellites under FCC milestone requirements.

Kulkarni said the transaction also highlights Amazon’s growing ambition to build a vertically integrated connectivity stack, combining cloud, connectivity and compute in a way that could eventually put it in competition not only with Starlink, but also with telecom operators and edge infrastructure providers. In his view, if AI inference increasingly shifts away from centralized cloud environments toward devices and the edge, Amazon could emerge as a uniquely positioned provider of “AI compute everywhere.”

He said the acquisition has implications beyond Amazon itself. For SpaceX, it raises competitive pressure across satellite connectivity and mobility, which could sharpen investor focus on margins and capital intensity in any future IPO scenario. For Apple, Kulkarni said the deal could deepen an emerging shift toward a multi-network satellite model, as Amazon’s Kuiper platform increasingly overlaps with services historically tied to Globalstar, including emergency and messaging applications.

Kulkarni said the pace of recent financing and customer wins around CoreWeave shows how quickly AI infrastructure markets are evolving, and he sees Amazon’s move as part of that same race to lock in assets, customers and long-term platform control.

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