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AST SpaceMobile, Inc. ASTS

Three-pass checkedFresh as companies report

In April, AST SpaceMobile launched a satellite into the wrong orbit and had to de-orbit it. The write-off was $125.9M, booked under a line item called "Loss on Involuntary Conversion."

The company has about twelve satellites working, plans more than ninety, and carries $25.4B of market value on $159M of expected revenue this year.

ASTS · price with moving averages

Daily · 6MWeekly · 3Y
$-7$26$59$92$125 Sep '23Apr '24Nov '24Jun '25Jan '26Aug '26 BID
EMAs82140

Source: market data.

The business

AST builds unusually large low-orbit satellites that talk directly to an ordinary phone. No special handset, no dish, no attachment: the satellite is big enough to reach a normal cellphone antenna from space, which is the entire technical bet and the reason the spacecraft are the size they are. The customers are mobile operators, AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Rakuten, Bell Canada and Saudi Telecom among more than sixty, who would resell coverage to their own subscribers in places towers do not reach.

Almost none of that is happening yet. Today's revenue is gateway equipment and software sold to those operators, plus United States government development contracts. Commercial per-subscriber revenue does not meaningfully exist.

Inside the complete Back of Napkin

  1. 01The business
  2. 02The numbers
  3. 03Management
  4. 04How it fails or surprises you
  5. 05The shape of the payoff
  6. 06Closing thoughts
  7. 07Methodology

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