The Three Gorges Reservoir in Hubei, China in July. Photo: PlanetScope

Despite the pandemic and its effects on the economy, Planet says it is exceeding business targets in 2020. Co-founder and CEO Will Marshall shared in an update on Tuesday that the Second Quarter (Q2) was one of Planet’s best quarters ever, and the company beat its targets and doubled the amount of new business booked in the quarter compared to the same period in 2019. 

In the first half of 2020, Planet increased first-time customers by 21%, compared to the same period in 2019, and saw over 100% Year-over-Year (YOY) growth across its product lines, with SkySat tasking seeing more than a 200% increase. 

Marshall reported that Planet is seeing demand from users in civil government, forestry, the U.S. federal government, academia, and international government.

“We’re seeing an increase of inbound interest and our results indicate that remote sensing data is critically important to numerous industries when in-person travel is limited and personnel health and safety is a top priority,” Marshall wrote. 

In recent months, Planet put up three new SkySats on a SpaceX Starlink launch, signed a reseller agreement with Geographic Information System (GIS) software partner Esri, rolled out new resolution and capabilities, and expanded its imagery contract with NASA.