Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Anpanman - AST SpaceMobile Q1 Earnings: Beyond the Headlines and Into Orbit

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Anpanman - AST SpaceMobile Q1 Earnings: Beyond the Headlines and Into Orbit · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:07
This is the AST Space Mobile podcast.
0:11
Just basically from the phone, be seamless, regardless of where
0:15
you are. We don't want the user even to
0:17
know that it's connected by satellite.
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Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
0:27
Everyone, thanks for joining. That was a A in my opinion.
0:31
That was a really great earnings call.
0:33
Obviously the stock is down and I think that probably has more
0:37
to do with algos and the headlines for what it's worth,
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like let me see here, I'm just looking at Bloomberg and all the
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headlines are pretty much related to this quarter's miss,
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meaning relative to what the treat had for expectations,
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which, you know, on the call, the company reiterated this
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notion of really looking at the annual number versus what's
1:01
going to happen quarter to quarter.
1:03
And so just so people have a sense, I think the Street had
1:07
modelled 39 million of revenue and let's see an operating loss
1:13
of $90,000,000. And so you know, what eventually
1:18
was reported is the let's see sales were 14.7 million and of
1:24
course I guess EPS, which is actually $0.23 per share.
1:29
The company missed it was $0.66 per share, which all this stuff
1:33
like on a quarterly basis is pretty much noise.
1:36
Obviously, it'll be more important as we get closer to
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the end of the year because then the company will either hit
1:41
their annual guidance of 150 to 100, a 150 to 200 million of
1:45
revenue or they won't, right. But I think it's important to
1:49
understand that this year a majority of the revenues are
1:55
related to government contracts. And so those are going to be
1:58
somewhat lumpy depending on when those are signed or when, you
2:01
know milestones are hit or when they're recognized.
2:03
And so it sounds like at least according to Andy Johnson, that
2:08
the results for this quarter were within plan, but they
2:12
reiterated 150 to $200 million, which I think is a positive
2:16
given that we did lose Bluebird 7.
2:18
And so there could have been some kind of pullback on full
2:22
year guidance, but there wasn't. And so I think that kind of
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underlines the whole notion that Bluebird 7 was a nice to have,
2:28
but not the need to have for government revenues.
2:31
And so but yeah, I think, I think algos are are taking the
2:35
stock down. We'll see how the Street reacts
2:38
for tomorrow in terms of, you know, research updates and then
2:42
of course how the the stock will actually trade on the open
2:44
market. What, what what I have seen and
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I pointed this out earlier is that you've had a number of
2:49
disappointments or or near term disappointments, whether that
2:53
was Red Wire, for example or Black Sky, both reported weaker
2:57
Q1 results. But then Black Sky in
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particular, and this is a company that's had, well, I
3:02
guess both have had very inconsistent execution, but
3:06
Black Sky did raise their full year outlook slightly.
3:09
And so that stock went as low as they went from like 40 or 39 to
3:14
as low as 30. And then now it's back at, let's
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see here is now back at 4138. And so a huge swing on those
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results, which I think underscores, you know, a bit of
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the volatility around space stocks.
3:29
As we all know, a lot of these names trade together and based
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off of factors or you know, something that's happening in
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the sector that I think Red Wire, for example, when they
3:39
reported Q1 results, which disappointed the stock was down
3:43
heavily. And subsequently the entire
3:46
sector, all the space stocks were down.
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And since then it's actually more than recovered and
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outperformed, right? So Red Wire I think got down to
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like $8.40 and it closed today at 12:16.
3:58
And this is after, by the way, AE Partners, which is a large
4:02
private equity firm, they monetized a huge, massive amount
4:05
of shares that they've been selling over time, which is a
4:08
huge overhang on the stock. But then they finally got
4:10
cleaned up, I think $11.00. And then of course, the stock
4:13
traded down to the eights, but now, you know, it's after those
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shares were digested and, and they reported results which
4:21
were, you know, mixed at best. And then, but I think, you know,
4:25
some people see some upside in in the potential outlook for the
4:27
company that stock has traded up.
4:30
And so, so I think it's, it's part of, you know, it's part of
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the the expectations for the space companies, which I think
4:41
for AST, if you peel back layers of the quarter, I mean,
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obviously the financial results for Q1, if you just look at it
4:48
on the face of it, it seemed somewhat light.
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But then if you think about what was really critical and
4:53
important for this quarter, which is post Bluebird 7 not
4:56
being placed in orbit, but you know, having a an acute focus,
5:00
the market being acutely focused on production and launch.
5:04
I thought this quarterly update was really great.
5:07
And so, so we'll just kind of go into it.
5:09
I there was a lot to cover in terms of the earnings call, the
5:14
10 Q and the presentation. So I actually had ChatGPT help
5:18
help me summarize it to a degree.
5:20
And I did listen to the call of course and and I went through
5:23
the presentation as well. But there's a lot, there's a lot
5:26
to go back. So I think, yeah, I think the,
5:29
the knee jerk reaction of the stock price, you know, we'll see
5:32
ultimately where it settles out tomorrow and then a few days
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from now. But, but I think there are some
5:37
near term catalysts. So the shipment of Bluebird 8-9
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and ten, that should happen fairly soon 'cause I think a
5:45
bell disclosed on the call that it's going to take, you know,
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call it three weeks or so to integrate in the Falcon 9.
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And so we should, if we're looking for a mid June launch,
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the shipment of those Bluebirds should be fairly soon.
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And based off of some of the pictures that we saw in the
6:01
presentation, that seems to be pretty close.
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And then yeah, there's, there's also the, the, the company
6:09
hinted they didn't obviously it's up to Blue Origin to
6:12
disclose all this stuff, but it sounds like there are a lot of
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Blue Origin launches scheduled for this year.
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And so the expectation is that that vehicle is going to be up
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and running again. Now we're obviously not going to
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go all in and and stack 6 Bluebirds or 8 Bluebirds on, on
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the first new Glen. You know, Bell talked about the
6:30
the notion of starting out small with which is 4, which I mean
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for Bluebird satellites that are several tons small is small in
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terms of number, but not small in terms of size.
6:39
But I think the first Blue Origin New Glen launch will be 4
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satellites and then it'll get scaled up from there.
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But of course, you know, we won't be the first.
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I will at least I don't think we're going to be the first
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commercial launch on Blue Origin New Glen.
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I think Amazon Leo's going to take that, take that first,
6:58
first position and then we'll see, you know, what happens from
7:00
there. But we did learn today about
7:02
another launch vehicle, which I'll talk a bit more about
7:04
later. And, and yeah, so why don't we
7:07
just kind of go through I, I try to organize each one of these
7:12
areas, like topic areas, and then I'm going to try to cover
7:16
some of the key points. But then, you know, I may miss
7:18
some of them, but I think it's important to, let's just go back
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to the financials, right? So you know, the company
7:26
reported relative to consensus lighter revenues, but handily
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they're pretty much immaterial at this point, right, 14.7
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million versus expectations of what was 39 or 37 according to
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the Street, but they reiterated 150 to 200.
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And it sounds like about half of those revenues are already
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booked. They have visibility and then
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the other half is what they see coming in throughout the year.
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And it's a potential upside to the plan.
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And so obviously it's, it's a bit more back loaded.
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And for the company, I think it's important to point out that
8:00
Q 1 ended on March 31st and we're now at what May 11th.
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And so we're almost halfway through the second quarter.
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And so the company probably has pretty good visibility on Q2.
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Hopefully you know, when they talk to research analysts
8:15
overnight, maybe they'll get try to guide these guys to something
8:19
somewhat more reasonable in in Q2.
8:22
But just to give you an idea, like the street in the call, the
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company talked about each quarter being sequentially
8:30
bigger than the prior quarter, but the street has pretty much
8:33
modeled this company like, you know, any normal, fully mature,
8:38
you know, scaled business. And so just to give you an idea
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of like how smooth the quarters are that the Street had laid
8:44
out, they they have 39,000,041 point 246.5 and then 50 million
8:51
in the fourth quarter. And so I think based off the
8:54
call, you know that that's going to be a bit more, the ramp is
8:58
going to be higher and and it's not going to be as smooth.
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But but yeah, that's you know, the company hinted at that or or
9:05
talked about 1:50 to 200 that then just to focus on the annual
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number, like don't worry about the quarter, quarter
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fluctuations. So we'll see.
9:15
The other thing is that let's see here, I think they mentioned
9:19
that for commercial customers contributed to Q1 revenue, which
9:21
is good because it's not just one, but we do know that a
9:26
majority of the contribution is from government customers.
9:29
And we learned today, which I'll talk a bit more about later,
9:32
that they also signed another 3 government contracts.
9:37
And so I think that brings us from 11 to now 14 in total,
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which is a lot, right? And these are a lot, you know,
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some of these contracts are ones that can grow into programs of
9:47
record that could be hundreds of millions to billions over
9:51
several years. And I, I think, you know, 1
9:54
interesting thing that I'll point out is that Chris Quilty
9:58
asked on the call in Q&A whether all this government work
10:02
requires a re architecting of the satellite.
10:05
And so he asked, you know, do you need to which by the way, we
10:08
don't really know if there are any optical inter satellite
10:12
links or any of these other things.
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But he asked very specifically, based off of the requirements of
10:18
these government contracts, are you going to have to build a new
10:21
satellite or modify the existing ones?
10:23
And Annabelle interestingly answered, you know, we've
10:25
actually been working with the Department of Defense for for
10:28
several years now. And so the satellites have
10:31
everything they need. And so that was actually quite
10:33
interesting to hear, which I think also there was a reference
10:37
to someone had asked about Bluebird 6 and performance that
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we were seeing from Bluebird 6. And he interestingly kind of
10:46
deflected that. And he said, well, you know,
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we'll, we'll be able to talk more about the performance of
10:52
Glock 2 once Bluebird 8-9 and ten are launched and are
10:56
deployed. And So what that told me is that
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Bluebird 6 is definitely, we already know this, but it's just
11:01
definitely a government satellite And they do not want
11:06
to talk about that satellite in particular, like any of the, the
11:10
metrics or performance or any of that stuff, because like that's
11:14
not really for commercial use. So that, that's kind of what I
11:17
took away from it. I don't know what if, if you
11:19
guys feel the same, but, but that's why I, I thought it was
11:21
interesting. He he, he specifically said we
11:24
can talk about the performance like once the other three are
11:28
up. And so obviously you you can
11:30
they are testing with Bluebird 6 and then they they see and know
11:34
what's going on with it, but but they're not going to talk about
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it. And there's a reason for that.
11:38
So, but anyway, let me yeah. So, so from a financial
11:43
perspective, I think, you know, look, it's, I wasn't expecting
11:47
anything from Q1. I thought, you know, perhaps
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like they were going to disappoint relative to
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consensus, but it really doesn't matter, right?
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And so I think maybe for people who are, you know, tourists are
12:00
like, you know, short term traders and of course the algos
12:03
like that, I guess that will matter.
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But I think we'll probably see a pretty strong rebound in the
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stock relative to where it is now similar to some of these
12:13
other space names. So, so we'll see.
12:15
But anyway, let's talk, let's go back and talk about network
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deployment and launch cadence. So this is my first topic,
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right? So the key question here is, you
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know, can they actually build and deploy the networks?
12:27
And so the key things that I took away, well, first of all,
12:30
which I think probably everybody was waiting to hear any color on
12:36
in this regard, was the fact that they reiterated the target
12:39
of 45 Bluebird satellites in orbit by the end of 2026.
12:43
And I did see, you know, some accounts on Twitter, of course,
12:47
you know, people who may not be close to the, the, the, the
12:49
story saying, well, how are they going to get 45 satellites
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launched by the end of the year? Well, it's important to remember
12:55
that we're talking about 45 in total.
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So that includes the six that are already, you know, block
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block 1 satellites, 1 Bluebirds one through 5 and then block
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block 2 satellites, which is Bluebird 6.
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You know that that's that number means, you know, we need to get
13:13
another 39 launched, right? And so they reiterated that.
13:16
And not only did they reiterate it, they actually, so I, I
13:20
thought this was, and this goes back to like the aspirational
13:24
goals, right? Like they, they have a target of
13:25
November. And so let, let's just assume
13:28
like by the end of November, they get 39 satellites launched
13:31
right now. Obviously like that, that target
13:35
to me is, is a stretch goal. Like I think if they can get 30
13:38
launched and deployed or you know, high 20s, like I think
13:43
that's going to be a great win. But the key thing is like, what
13:45
is the production cadence at that point, right?
13:47
And so if they can still get to 45, then that would be amazing
13:51
to me. That would be, yeah, that would
13:54
be outperforming if they can get to 45.
13:57
But they reiterate it today. And so for anybody who was
13:59
concerned, you know, how are they going to do it?
14:03
You know, is that, is that a possibility?
14:05
To me, it's a stretch goal, but it's in the realm of
14:08
possibility. And so I think that was an
14:09
important data point highlight. The other thing is that Bluebird
14:14
8-9 and ten are expected to launch in mid June on Falcon 9.
14:18
And so as I mentioned before, that means that we probably have
14:20
to ship those satellites pretty soon, right.
14:23
So within the next call it week, week and a half.
14:27
And so that that's something to look forward to for in in terms
14:31
of the catalyst and you know getting the stock going again.
14:36
The other interesting thing is that the company talked about
14:39
their multi launch provider strategy and how it remains in
14:42
place. And so they specifically called
14:44
out SpaceX. Obviously we're we're launching
14:47
on, you know, at a minimum, it seems 2 Falcon nines.
14:51
And then I think we have feel pretty comfortable that there
14:54
might be 3, although I might roll that back.
14:57
I might just say 2 Falcon nines. And then, you know, obviously
15:01
we've got Blue Origin, which is going to be a big contributor.
15:03
And I, I posted a tweet earlier today about how Blue Origin, New
15:07
Glenn, it sounds like internally they're targeting to get a third
15:11
booster in the rotation by the end of summer.
15:13
And this is GS1, the, the large first stage that returns to
15:17
Earth in Qaland. But they're looking to get a
15:20
third booster in the rotation by the end of summer.
15:22
And then by the end of the year, they're looking at 4IN rotation,
15:24
right. So that means that if they're on
15:27
a 30 day refurbishment, you know, cadence, they can actually
15:32
today they can launch, you know, theoretically they can launch
15:35
twice a month, but by the end of the day could be launching 4 * a
15:39
month, which is pretty insane, right?
15:40
Like to put that in context, like if you're able to launch 4
15:45
new Glens a month and let's say you Max out eight Bluebirds on
15:50
each, then you've got you can deploy, you know, if we had them
15:53
fully produce, you could deploy 40, yeah, 46 satellites in one
16:00
pop in a month, which is insane, right?
16:02
So that's, that's why like Kook focuses on this constellation
16:06
Constipation because like once these launch providers and we're
16:10
just talking about one, right? Once they get up to once we get
16:13
up to production cadence and that matches with launch, then
16:19
this whole notion of trying to get to, you know, 604560
16:24
satellites, 90 a hundred 248, you can knock that out pretty
16:28
quickly. And, and so the constraint,
16:31
which I think the bears would, would one of the key focuses was
16:35
been competitive constrained. Like, Oh my gosh, you're
16:38
depending on someone else for launch.
16:40
And, and that's going to be a problem.
16:42
No, it's not. Launch is actually going to be
16:45
pretty plentiful depending on of course, you have to be a paying
16:47
customer and you have to be, you have to go through the
16:50
integration process and be set up to launch with someone.
16:54
Now, you know, for a start up company, they can't just roll up
16:57
to any, any like Blue Origin or, or SpaceX or ula and say, hey,
17:02
we want to go launch with you guys.
17:04
And here's some money. You know, they, they, there's,
17:07
there's a process to get to that point, right?
17:09
Which is you have to build a satellite, you have to test it,
17:12
you have to go, you know, it's not as if like a launch provider
17:15
will just take any cargo and throw it up there because the,
17:17
the cargo itself could be unstable and then, you know, put
17:20
the, the, the rocket at risk. And so there's a lot of process
17:25
that you have to go through. And so I think it's important to
17:28
understand that now we've got, you know, SpaceX, we've, we've
17:32
already launched with Blue Origin.
17:34
And now it sounds like, it sounds like we're on ULA which
17:39
is to me, that's great news because ULA obviously they've
17:42
had some recent setbacks with some mishaps, although there
17:46
weren't mishaps that caused loss of payloads or cargo.
17:50
But, you know, obviously they've had some challenges.
17:52
But at the same time, like they've been a very stable and
17:56
reliable launch provider, right? And another thing that Cooke
17:59
pointed out is that ula does a ton of government launch and it
18:03
just so happens that we're working with the government.
18:05
And so, yeah, it's kind of interesting that they are the
18:09
the other heavy launch provider that we've added to the stable,
18:11
which I think, you know, someone had asked, what about Rocket
18:15
Lab? Could you put like 2-2 Bluebirds
18:17
on a, on the Neutron? Like once it's launched?
18:19
I don't know for sure, but if it's a standard size fairing,
18:22
then sure. Like that rocket can launch if
18:25
it can support 2 block 2 Bluebirds.
18:27
Like why? Why not, right?
18:29
Like, I know the companies, the companies do know each other and
18:33
they probably had meetings according to some of these.
18:35
We always talk about these expert calls according to a
18:38
former AST employee. Like, you know, the management
18:41
teams have talked to each other. And so I, I don't know how
18:43
reliable that is, but I'm sure like AST is talking to Rocket
18:49
Lab, they're talking to Relativity, you know, they're
18:51
talking to Mitsubishi Heavy, which, you know, Abell mentioned
18:55
on the call. He was like, oh, MHI.
18:58
And so they're talking to everybody, right?
18:59
And so I think it's in the company's interest to to have
19:04
multiple launch providers just in case, for example, if you
19:07
have a mishap on, you know, if, if, whether it's your car or
19:11
somebody else's. But if you have a mishap and and
19:13
some vehicle gets grounded, like you're not waiting for that to
19:16
come back. You can then pivot to some of
19:18
these other vehicles, which I think for ula you know,
19:21
obviously they've got a ton of Amazon Leo launches.
19:24
But then the part where I think I don't think Amazon Leo's going
19:27
to have an issue in terms of being ready.
19:29
But for ASD Space Mobile, I think ULA is probably going to
19:34
be a bit of an option for this coming year, meaning later in
19:38
2026, where if there are government payloads that aren't
19:42
ready, then ASC can step into the shoes to the shoes of that
19:46
launch and use, you know, a Centaur to go up.
19:50
However, I think in 2027 then I think Centaur could be a more,
19:56
you know, material contributor to, to the company's plans.
19:59
But my guess is that we might actually have a Centaur launch
20:04
planned this year and it it's not going to be so a bell.
20:07
When he was when he was asked about heavy launch, he kind of
20:11
spilled the beans. He said, well, we could launch,
20:12
you know, 5 block 2 Bluebirds on a ULV Vulcan.
20:17
And so that you know. I, I don't think it was
20:22
intentional, but yet kind of intentional that you talked
20:24
about it. So, but you know, I, I, I think
20:28
maybe for the first time, maybe you don't launch 5 Bluebirds on,
20:33
on a ULAULA rocket. Maybe you launch like 3 or 4.
20:37
But then, you know, there was a reference later, I think Scott
20:39
talked about where we are going to be dependent on Lord and New
20:44
Glenn and then we're also going to be dependent on SpaceX and
20:47
SpaceX equivalents. And so when he meant when he
20:50
said SpaceX equivalents to me. And then, you know, with the
20:53
Bell's comments about ula and launching up to five, my guess
20:56
is when you talk about SpaceX equivalent and ula up to five,
21:00
that you're probably looking at the different configurations
21:02
where ula can either launch three or can launch four or five
21:05
depend on how many boosters they use.
21:08
Which. And I, I, by the way, I'm, I've
21:11
got to do some research around ULA because now that now that's
21:15
publicly known, I've got to dig in.
21:16
But but ula at least the Vulcan Heavy, you can put like two
21:21
SRBS, which are like side, side boosters, you can put four or in
21:25
the heaviest configuration, you can put 6.
21:27
And my guess is like 4-5 Bluebirds, you would put 6 SRBS.
21:31
But but anyway, I might even, I might have the wrong vehicle.
21:34
It might be a different ULA vehicle, which again, I'll, I'll
21:37
research. But but I think it was important
21:41
the call today to to kind of outline the fact that, and this
21:45
is again, you know, skeptics and bears will harp on the the fact
21:49
that, you know, we, we're too dependent on SpaceX or, or Blue
21:53
Origin. Well, we've got another, we got
21:56
another, you know, another vehicle in the stable.
21:59
And so, and I think it's not going to stop there.
22:01
I think, you know, they're, they're probably at some point
22:04
is going to be, you know, Mitsubishi Heavy and also Ariana
22:09
added. But, but we'll see.
22:10
My, my guess is like Ariana, you might use them in conjunction
22:14
with winning some spectrum from Europe and and if Satco gets
22:18
traction Satco Europe, then my guess is they would probably
22:21
start throwing some business over to to Arianne.
22:25
But yeah, so management reiterated, let's see they
22:29
reiterated 4560 satellites for continuous service in key
22:32
markets and then of course 90 satellites for broader worldwide
22:35
coverage. Other thing for BB7, you know
22:40
they. And yeah, they have insurance
22:51
that's they're going to get money back for it.
22:53
I think it's important to note that Blue Origin, again, they
22:57
didn't talk about it today. They're they're deferring that
22:59
to Blue Origin. But I'm pretty certain, you
23:02
know, based off of what we know that that New Glenn is going to
23:05
launch again very soon. And that will probably be, you
23:09
know, an Amazon Leo mission. So moving on, let's talk about
23:12
manufacturing. So some key things that were
23:16
disclosed today, Bluebird 11 through 33 are in advanced
23:19
production and assembly. So the key part about that
23:22
disclosure is that they didn't talk about 8 through 10.
23:25
So that means that eight through 10 are done in terms of assembly
23:28
and they're going through testing right now that that's
23:30
how I read that. So once that testing is done, as
23:34
long as like nothing is found and there's no issues, then
23:37
they'll be ready to ship those things.
23:39
And so we should expect APR in the near term that those
23:43
satellites are being sent. And then the next stop is
23:47
Bluebird 1112 and 13. And based off of like some some
23:51
work we've done, it seems like 11-12 and thirteen are probably
23:56
going to be close to done, you know, sometime or not close to
24:00
done, meaning I guess not in the next few days, but my guess is
24:05
towards the end of end of May, early June.
24:10
And if that's the case, then we could see a launch of that
24:13
second batch in early July. And so to reiterate, you know,
24:19
first batch probably mid. And as we all know, like launch
24:21
kind of can get delayed. And so call it mid to late June.
24:25
And then the second batch is going to be early to mid-july,
24:29
right? And that will be both of those
24:31
will be on Falcon 9. And then after that, it's
24:33
unclear. I think maybe maybe it will be
24:38
another Falcon 9 and then it'll be Blue Origin, New Glen, or it
24:41
could be crazy enough. It could be Falcon 9 or sorry,
24:44
Blue Origin. So, but that would probably be
24:47
August, maybe early September. But anyway, but it seems like
24:52
the company in order to get to that 39 number and I've got to
24:57
break it down more. They're they're they're
24:58
expecting this whole idea of like 1 to one lunch every once
25:02
to two months on average. I think that's going to be maybe
25:06
they're being quite conservative on that because there needs to
25:08
be quite a few launches, right, in order to meet that stretch
25:11
goal. So, so we'll see.
25:13
I mean, we're going to find out over the coming weeks, you know,
25:16
how that unfolds in regards to production.
25:19
They've talked about phased arrays, so not just microns, but
25:22
actual phased arrays. So the complete set that you
25:26
would put onto a satellite, they are completed through Bluebird
25:30
28. And that's really important
25:31
because if you think about the satellite itself, the, the
25:35
composite shell is really just like, is really a, a carrying
25:41
case for the, the key like guts of the system, which are the
25:45
microns. Microns have the batteries, they
25:50
have the processors, the Fpgas or, or now ASICS as well.
25:55
The, the antennas and then the, the solar arrays.
25:57
And then the, the control sat lives some inside of the the the
26:04
ring. However, I think the most
26:05
important and labor intensive part of everything are the
26:08
actual microns. And so the fact that we have
26:12
microns fully assembled and done.
26:15
So if we if we take out 8-9 and ten, that's basically 12 through
26:19
28, right? And so we have that many microns
26:23
already completed, which is great.
26:25
And so now it's a matter of assembling these things and and
26:28
testing them, right. And you know, once we've
26:31
completed the first 8-9 and 10 and then ship out second one, I
26:35
think the, you know, this whole notion of a hockey stick
26:38
projection for for production, we're going to see that in
26:41
relatively short order. Let's see.
26:44
So management, you know, they reiterated target of 6 fully
26:48
assembled satellites per month. My guess is like they'll
26:51
probably hit that in the next month or so, So sometime in June
26:56
based off of, you know, some of the color that they gave.
27:00
And so once we're at that point, you know, that's essentially one
27:05
New Glenn's worth of lunch every month, right?
27:08
So 6 and then maybe eventually up to 8.
27:11
But I think that's the initial target where the company has
27:14
talked about getting that up to 10 to 12 per month, right?
27:19
And so going back to the whole idea of the 45 to 60, if you can
27:26
build 12 of these per month, then you can put up a full
27:29
consolation in pretty short order.
27:31
So seven months is you know that that would be sorry, six months
27:36
that would be, you know that that would be 7, what is it 72
27:40
satellites. And so yeah, you're pretty close
27:43
to full consolation needed for coverage.
27:46
So anyway, but going back to manufacturing, they, they
27:50
disclosed that you know, there are now over 500,000 square feet
27:53
of global manufacturing and operation space and the, as we
27:58
also the Texas Micron production facility is fully operational
28:02
now. And so there they, they disclose
28:04
that they can make over 10 satellites worth of microns per
28:08
month, right. And So what was interesting
28:11
today is that Bell did talk about fully deployed microns and
28:18
so not really talk about satellites, but the number of
28:21
microns that are deployed like fixed, fixed.
28:24
Let me see if I can find my notes.
28:29
But he, but he today he talked about maybe I need the
28:32
presentation, but instead of talking about satellites, yeah.
28:36
So here he, I guess it was on page 12 in the presentation, he
28:40
talked about having 650 microns in total on orbit and growing to
28:44
10,000 microns, which would represent 45 satellites by year
28:49
end. And so that was interesting
28:51
metric. I think instead of talking
28:53
satellites, he's talking about like square footage or or real
28:57
estate that you have up in space, which are these phased
29:00
arrays. Just kind of interesting.
29:03
But let's see. Just going through my notes
29:08
here. So, yeah, in terms of
29:10
production, yeah, there were, I thought it was pretty positive
29:13
update. I mean when I saw, you know, so
29:17
folks will have to remember we, we saw an update that the the
29:19
satellites were ready to be shipped or almost ready to be
29:23
shipped and you know to be launched mid June.
29:27
And then we got another detailed factory walkthrough on the
29:30
Micron production line. And then of course, you know, we
29:35
got the update on the performance today.
29:37
So but yeah, I think I think performance of the satellite,
29:40
but I think the the update around.
30:00
So for production, you know, getting to that six satellites
30:03
per month and then that eventually going to 8 or
30:09
789-1011 and eventually 12, right.
30:14
And so that's a quick, I guess quick notes on manufacturing
30:17
scale up technology, validation of performance.
30:20
So today I already talked about this morning, so I won't go into
30:23
too much detail, but the company disclosed that they had a peak
30:27
data rate speed 99 megabits per second to an unmodified phone.
30:33
Some sleuthing that Space Mob did.
30:35
When you look at get some of the screens that the two engineers
30:39
were looking at, you could kind of make out that there was some
30:43
test result on there that was at 168 megabits per second.
30:46
And so we I guess it was hard to understand if that was the
30:50
current test with the Block 1 Bluebird or it could be with
30:53
Bluebird 6. But but of course, you know, the
30:57
company referred to the target of or you know, they, they, they
31:02
believe that they'll get to roughly twice that performance
31:05
on a Block 2 satellite, right. And so this is the comment that
31:09
I made about a Bell not referencing necessarily Bluebird
31:12
6, but Bluebird 8-9 and 10 in order to validate that, which I
31:18
think again, you know, maybe it's due to disclosure issues or
31:22
whatever it is. But that word 6 satellite, my
31:25
guess is we're not going to learn that much about it in the
31:29
future because I think it's a government satellite.
31:31
And what are they doing with that thing?
31:33
They probably don't want the world to know, which is fine
31:36
with me. So let's see here.
31:40
But yeah, what was interesting, let's see.
31:42
So the ASIC is 1 disclosure that we had today is that the ASIC is
31:49
currently in production. And so they're now making
31:52
microns with the ASIC. So that was a pretty big, big
31:56
update for me. I think some folks as as could
31:59
cover this past weekend you had some skeptics saying that the
32:01
ASIC wouldn't enter into production for another 9-18
32:06
months on something crazy like that.
32:08
Whereas today in the 10 Q and also discussed on the call, the
32:12
ASIC is in production and it's being integrated into Microns as
32:16
we speak. And now and you know, I think
32:18
it's important to note that there is a balance between FPGA
32:23
and ASIC satellites. And so as Katzie has pointed
32:26
out, either you having FPGA satellites is good if you want
32:31
flexibility and you want to change things around and
32:33
especially for government use cases.
32:35
But you know, for if you're just doing straight commercial
32:38
applications, then having the ASICS are are probably better.
32:41
And one of the interesting disclosures today, which I think
32:45
thankfully someone asked in the investor, the retail investor
32:49
question section, they asked, you know, what is the
32:52
performance difference between the FPGA and and ASIC.
32:55
So are you able to get more performance like for example,
32:58
higher throughput speeds on the ASIC versus the FPGA?
33:02
So you know, if the question was posed as the, if the FPGA were
33:07
to deliver 120 megahertz per second, could you get more
33:10
performance to the user on the ASIC?
33:12
And a bell clarified that where the peak speeds are going to be
33:16
the same for the FPGA or the ASIC.
33:18
The key thing of course is you know the architecture, the, the
33:21
ASIC is lighter, the FPGA is heavier, ASIC uses less power,
33:26
the ASIC, the FPGA uses more power.
33:29
But what the ASIC does give you is it gives you more capacity,
33:33
right? So the ability to serve more
33:35
simultaneous users versus the FPGA where you're going to serve
33:39
less simultaneous users, but the peak speeds will be the same,
33:42
right? So any performance that we see
33:46
in terms of testing from the Fpgas, that should give us a
33:48
very good view on what the ACC will do on a per user basis.
33:52
But then of course, once the ASIC Bluebirds are out there,
33:56
you'll be able to serve way more users, 10 times more users at
34:00
the at the same time versus you know, versus an FPGA.
34:06
Let's see here. He did talk a bit about AAI
34:10
spectrum management and its computing capabilities, which
34:14
are, you know, so they're researching and you know, I
34:19
guess developing that technology which will be incorporated into
34:23
Bluebird satellites towards the end of this year.
34:26
And so I think it'll be interesting to hear a bit about
34:31
how that will change performance.
34:33
And, and you know, obviously we've gotten some hints that
34:36
there's a 3X near term performance boost and then over
34:39
the longer term it could be 10 times.
34:42
But yeah, that's, that's going to be something that we'll
34:44
probably learn more towards the end of this year.
34:47
Let's see. So ground network and
34:49
integration and service readiness.
34:52
Let's see. So they've got ground
34:54
integration underway in 17 countries representing 3 billion
34:57
people. And so they listed a whole host
34:58
of countries there where they're actually out on the ground
35:01
putting up ground stations and doing MNO integration.
35:05
And so they listed US, Canada, UK, India, Brazil, Spain,
35:09
Germany, France, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Japan, New Zealand,
35:13
Philippines, Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal.
35:17
So, you know, these are all locations that conveniently
35:19
cover most of the earth. And so you'll have when
35:23
satellites pass overhead, they'll be communicating with
35:25
these gay rays. But but yeah, that, that was a
35:28
pretty interesting disclosure 'cause we're we're on the cusp
35:31
of commercial service. So they've got to do deploy
35:35
these gateways one. And and so this was a really
35:38
good, I don't recall if this is actually on the, on the, the Q&A
35:43
or it was in the 10 Q. But this was a very critical
35:48
disclosure in that they have successfully tested satellite to
35:54
satellite cellular broadband hand off without disrupting the
35:57
smartphone connection. And so that to me is a big
36:02
milestone where having seamless data call or you know what, what
36:07
have you, you know, satellite hand off to satellite, they
36:10
apparently have demonstrated that and have successfully
36:14
integrated that capability. And so that was a pretty big
36:17
disclosure, which obviously maybe people kind of glossed
36:22
over just given where the stock price is trading.
36:24
But important, there's a ton of these Nuggets and so I'm going
36:27
to continue to go through them. Let's see here.
36:30
So let's talk about regulatory progress and US
36:33
commercialization. They did talk about the FCC
36:36
grant, which was was at April 22nd, which obviously you know
36:42
the company is not authorized to launch its consolation and
36:46
provide service using low man spectrum with a Verizon, AT&T
36:49
and Firstnet. That's for up to 248 satellites.
36:54
And let's see Verizon's $45 million commercial payment that
36:58
went hard during this quarter because of regulatory approval.
37:01
And so that was disclosed in 10. Q Also just for people
37:06
housekeeping, there were no material changes in terms of
37:09
risk factors in the 10Q versus the 10K, which is at the end of
37:14
2025. So, so that's good.
37:18
Let's see. So here in terms of M&O partners
37:21
on the commercial side, they disclose that they're now at
37:24
nearly 60 global M&O partners and that covers more than 3
37:28
billion subscribers. So they've been around that 3
37:30
billion number for quite some time.
37:32
So when they say more than 3 billion, I don't know if that
37:34
means like 3.1 or 3,50,000,000, but you know who's counting,
37:39
right? But but the good thing is like
37:41
we've got traction with M and OS, we've gone from, I remember
37:46
when, when AST first came public, I think we're in the mid
37:50
single digits for for M&O partners.
37:53
And then over the quarters you can count these things up like
37:55
we went to 17, then we went to 20 and now we're at 60.
37:59
And so that's good progress. And in the disclosures, you
38:03
know, Telus was a new agreement and they made a small equity
38:06
investment. We found out through the 10 Q
38:10
that they actually entered into a direct subscription agreement
38:13
with the company. And so they actually they didn't
38:15
buy the stock on the open market.
38:16
They had bought it directly from the company at I think it was
38:19
like $80.66. It's a pretty small, you know,
38:22
token investment, $5,000,000. But nonetheless, they, they put
38:25
their money where the mouth is. And then we also had agreements
38:28
with new Axion Telecom, which which was disclosed during I
38:33
think it was like Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
38:35
And you know, we, we tweeted about that before and then the
38:39
company reiterated, you know, commercial contracted commercial
38:42
revenue commits here. They they said now exceed 1.2
38:46
billion. I think before originally it was
38:49
like 1 billion and then it got to 1.2 and then now it exceeds
38:53
one point. The new number will be will it
39:00
be 1.41 point 5? We'll see.
39:04
But going back to revenue guidance, because this kind of
39:08
fits into that. The company did disclose that,
39:12
you know, obviously they're targeting 150 to 200 million of
39:14
revenue in 2026, but the opportunity for 2027 and let me
39:20
just see what consensus has, but Scott talked about an
39:23
opportunity of 1 billion in revenue in 2027 and obviously
39:27
that just a reminder that's a stretch goal.
39:30
So obviously they've got to get the consolation up and running
39:34
and and commercial operations have to be, you know, cooking
39:37
and then of course you got the defense business.
39:38
But in 2027, just so that people haven't have, you know, some
39:43
calibration, the Street consensus for 27, excuse me, is
39:48
710 million. And so, you know, the stretch
39:51
goal is 1 billion and the Street expects 710.
39:54
So that's pretty good considering the company did
39:58
71,000,000 of revenue in 2025. If you take the midpoint of this
40:02
year, they're going to do 175,000,000 in 26 and then, you
40:05
know, 700, let's say 700 to a billion in 27.
40:09
And then the Street has 1.64 billion in 28 and then 2 1/2
40:15
billion in 2029. So that's, that's, I don't know,
40:21
I don't know if I've ever analyzed a company that's had
40:23
that type of revenue ramp. I'm I'm sure they're, they're
40:26
definitely are out there. But putting that aside, like I
40:29
don't think there's any company that's had EBITDA margins of 90
40:34
plus percent. But but yeah, it'll be
40:36
interesting to see once a company is up to commercial, you
40:42
know, they're hitting on all cylinders how the street will
40:44
react to those type of margins. But let's see.
40:48
So moving on, let's talk about U.S. government and defense
40:51
opportunities. So as I discussed before, the
40:54
the company disclosed three additional U.S. government
40:57
awards since March 2026. They are expected to be
41:03
contributors like material or significant contributors this
41:07
this year. So that's good.
41:09
And I believe those were granted based off of off of in, in space
41:15
service performance, right. And so my guess is that those 3
41:19
contracts may be related to Bluebird 6 and would have been
41:23
late to Bluebird 7, but because they were just granted, they
41:27
must have been related to FM 1 and FM 2.
41:31
That's my guess. The awards cover secure
41:34
communications and non communication capabilities.
41:37
And you know that I think Scott talked about continued execution
41:41
across five existing government contracts in Q1.
41:45
And as I mentioned before, I think in total we have 14 now.
41:49
And so specifically, he called out progress under SDA, Halo,
41:53
Europe of Track 2, commercial solutions, some work related to
41:57
Fairwinds and the tactical sat com that they do it, you know,
42:01
tactical sat com meaning communications to war fighters
42:05
using unmodified phones. And so, yeah, there's a shout
42:09
out there. Let's see.
42:14
And they reiterated, you know, the opportunity here where a lot
42:18
of these contracts can become or grow into programs of record
42:22
with large medium to long term revenue potential, meaning
42:25
hundreds of millions to billions of dollars over multiple years
42:28
for each of these things. And so so yeah, I mean that's I
42:33
think that's probably the the layperson that only understands
42:38
the company is like a directed device provider.
42:40
They probably don't have much of sense that there is a defense
42:44
use case here. And so, so that was good to get
42:48
that update. Let's see.
42:49
So Spectrum strategy, so based off of the company's, you know,
42:55
the, the satellite architecture of low band block, block 2
42:59
Bluebirds and then eventual block 3 Bluebirds and block 4 or
43:04
actually they probably don't include block 4 for this, but
43:07
the satellite technologies for the the next two generations can
43:11
basically utilize 1100 megahertz of lower mid band spectrum
43:15
globally. And so you know, they, they
43:19
talked about the idea of utilizing for mid band spectrum
43:22
L band in the US and Canada and also, you know, across the globe
43:27
and then also having priority rights to S band spectrum as
43:30
well outside of the US. And so, you know, there's been a
43:34
ton of inks built by Space Mob about how it looks like Echostar
43:40
and ViaSat are going to have, you know, access to some of that
43:45
S band globally. And then there's on the space
43:47
too, but there's also a decent amount of S band that's up for
43:50
grabs. And so that's probably what AST
43:53
is focusing on right now, which, you know, that's part of the
43:57
spectrum allocation process in Europe.
43:59
But but yeah, the company feels good about the position.
44:03
They talked that there was a, there was an analogy where they
44:07
talked about how one of the carriers that they're working
44:09
with based off of their low band spectrum holdings and their mid
44:13
band spectrum holdings, that they expect to get around 100
44:16
megahertz of access to 100 megahertz of spectrum, which is
44:21
pretty crazy. And so I would assume, and and
44:25
you know, we've talked about this before, like the key thing
44:28
about direct advice is that they're all these like satellite
44:30
players, they're trying to get into it.
44:31
And Amazon, you know, it's no different.
44:33
They they're buying global star, which has, you know, has like
44:37
interesting harmonized spectrum globally, but it's MSS and it's
44:41
not a ton like we're talking, I think in total, I got to go back
44:45
in my notes, but maybe like, you know, 15 to 20 megahertz in
44:48
total of up and down link together in total.
44:51
Whereas the key thing that AST has, and it's part of the
44:55
importance of if you want a seamless, my experience of
44:59
service is that you want to have access to low band spectrum.
45:02
And that's the only, the only way to get access to low band
45:05
spectrum is through M&O partners.
45:07
And if you want a seamless experience with your phone, then
45:10
you need to be integrated into the M&O partners, you know,
45:13
network core, right? And so it's important that while
45:18
these other players are trying to get into the market, they're
45:21
going to have real issues in terms of their go to market
45:24
strategy. How do they access consumers?
45:26
You know, obviously handsets will have to incorporate a
45:30
chipset that utilizes their spectrum versus AST already
45:33
works with every existing phone. And and so I think it's
45:36
important in terms of user adoption and usage that, you
45:41
know, there's no friction for a, a subscriber on ATT or Verizon
45:46
to utilize our service, right? And it's going to be seamless.
45:50
It's going to work through, you know, one or two walls.
45:53
It's going to work in your in a plane, it's going to work in a
45:55
car. And so not all these things are
45:59
not all these things are equal, right?
46:01
And so whether that's Amazon trying to do something.
46:04
And by the way, the company did respond to a question about what
46:08
they thought about Amazon and global star.
46:10
And their response was, you know, that's an interesting SOS,
46:14
you know, emergency solution today, if it's a backup
46:17
solution. And it's going to take many
46:20
years for them, which I agree, it's going to take years for
46:22
them to figure out what they want to do, which will require
46:25
new satellites, not the old existing ones that are being
46:28
being produced by MBA space and the next generation one that
46:31
that MBA space is building. But Amazon will have to think of
46:34
something more than that. And so that could be 3-4 years
46:37
from now. But then on top of that, they're
46:39
going to need to acquire more spectrum, right?
46:42
And so global star, you're going to have to augment what they
46:45
have today with like something else, right?
46:48
And so in my opinion, like at some point in the future, you
46:51
could see a situation where AST and Amazon work together, but
46:55
we'll see. It's probably too early for
46:57
that. Let's see.
47:00
And you know, going back to what I was saying before, based off
47:04
of some AI optimization and, and management of spectrum, you
47:09
know, the company believes that it can multiply the efficiency
47:14
of spectrum. So you know get a performance
47:17
improvement of anywhere between three times near term and 10
47:20
times in the future. Let me see here.
47:25
So yeah, in terms of operating expenses, like the company, they
47:28
had like 79.8 million of operating costs, which was in
47:32
line with what they had projected.
47:33
I think they projected 70 to 80 in the previous quarter.
47:36
And then CapEx actually came in lower because of the timing of
47:40
some of these launch payments, which I think could cover this
47:44
before where I do think we have like favorable economics with
47:51
Blue Origin, New Glen. But I think the, what was
47:53
disclosed in the quarter of our prepayments, I, I don't think
47:57
you could assume all those are going to go to SpaceX.
48:01
My guess is like maybe some part, part of it may go to ULA
48:05
and then there could be some, you know, some type of
48:07
prepayments. I'll, I'll be at low that go to
48:10
Blue Origin. But I'm in agreement with with
48:13
Kook. I think we probably have more
48:16
than or at at least for this year, a handful or if not more
48:21
Falcon 9 launches. But again, you know, we'll see
48:23
how that kind of unfolds. Let's see man, I'm getting tired
48:31
here 'cause I, I did like 2 calls today.
48:33
So or spaces. Let's see, let's talk about
48:37
strategic positioning. So, you know, the company
48:40
reiterated this. They're the only, the first and
48:43
only space based cellular broadband network.
48:46
And as we saw with Starlink, like some of the data
48:50
performance that they've had, it's been pretty anemic.
48:53
And so just what I reiterated on the call this morning, like
48:58
SpaceX is hoping with their second version of the Direct to
49:02
sell satellite, they're hoping that one will be in line in
49:05
terms of performance with our current Block 2.
49:08
And that's going to be in what, 3-2 to three years, maybe 2 at
49:11
the short end of it. But then by the time they catch
49:15
up, we will have been on another iteration or multiple iterations
49:19
of the Block 2 program. And then of course Block 3
49:22
program, which is going to be the comparable because it's mid
49:25
band, it'll be the comparable service to Starlink.
49:29
That one will be at a much higher throughput.
49:32
So my guess is like you're talking not, you know, for Block
49:36
2, we're looking at 200 megabits per second.
49:39
I think Starlink is saying 150 megabits per second for their
49:43
second version of of their satellite, whereas for block 3,
49:47
given that we're using mid band spectrum and you're going to
49:50
have much more, you know, or access to more to more spectrum.
49:56
My guess is like that's going to be the potential performance
49:59
could be in the hundreds of megabits per second.
50:02
And so with the tweet earlier today, if you do, you know,
50:06
carrier aggregation and you use multiple satellites, you know,
50:09
you could be looking at a user getting, of course, if there
50:12
were no other users around, they might be getting, you know, 1 GB
50:16
per second type of data speeds, right?
50:18
Eventually when the you have multiple shells of the
50:21
constellation and identified you could get performance like that.
50:26
Let's see, there was an update on patents and patent pending
50:30
claims. So we've have I think now 3900
50:33
patents of which roughly 2000 were granted or allowed.
50:36
I think the previous update that was like 3800 patent penny
50:41
claims and then maybe something like 1600 granted and allowed.
50:44
I'll have to look at that. But but it's good, it's good to
50:47
see like they keep stacking patents away.
50:49
And as we've seen, as people have updated or whenever these
50:54
patents get filed or published later, it's interesting to see
50:58
what some of these technologies look like, which one other thing
51:02
is that someone had asked. And, and by the way, like when
51:05
management highlights retail questions, they're pick, they're
51:10
hand picking those. It's not as if like there's only
51:13
three retail questions that come in.
51:16
This is a great tool for management where they, they can
51:19
address like key questions that that people have, but also will
51:23
they'll use that as A to highlight something, right.
51:25
And so it was interesting that they picked the technological
51:30
mode, you know, IP question that someone had and Abel was very
51:33
adamant about repeating that we have 3900 patents and patent
51:37
pending claims then to 1000 that are granted or allowed.
51:40
He kind of implied that, you know, these other competitors
51:44
have obviously like a very long way to go in terms of developing
51:48
their technology and trying to hopefully get to something
51:50
that's comparable to what we have.
51:52
But the fact that he was talking about the patents, you know, I,
51:56
I don't know if it's in the cards or the company's plans,
51:59
but you know, ultimately do they use those in the future, maybe
52:02
at the right time or you let people kind of go down.
52:06
I think strategically you probably like people architect
52:09
something, go down the path as far as they can and then and
52:13
incorporate or cut or come closer, incorporate, you know,
52:16
your technology and then you spring it on them later.
52:19
You're like, hey, you're using my stuff.
52:20
And so either you have to stop using it because they're,
52:24
because I'll sue you or you're going to pay me for it.
52:26
And so maybe that's the strategy, I'm not sure.
52:31
So I think that's most of kind of the the highlights.
52:35
I probably missed quite a bit. There's just so much to cover.
52:39
But yeah, I thought today was a really great update.
52:42
You know, I think there was some expectations that people had of
52:45
perhaps like some big announcements, commercial
52:47
announcements, which, yeah, that might have contributed to some
52:51
disappointment to a degree. But overall, I think the key
52:55
risks were around launch and production, which, you know, is,
53:00
is we've seen some of us have talked about expert networks.
53:03
It seems like the hedge funds have been focused on that
53:05
recently. And, and I think the company did
53:07
a good job of addressing launch where we're adding a third,
53:12
actually technically a fourth launch provider.
53:14
So we, we can still launch on ISRO, LVM 3.
53:18
We also have SpaceX Falcon 9, Lords and New Glenn.
53:21
And now we have ula which, you know, after that, we probably
53:27
will end up adding Arian and perhaps Rocket Lab, Neutron
53:33
when, you know, knock on wood, hopefully if, if that that
53:36
program is successful in their first initial test this I think
53:40
in the fourth quarter of this year.
53:43
And then, you know, interestingly, I think
53:45
relatively, yeah, relativity has been making quite a bit of
53:48
progress. I've seen like update videos
53:50
from Mike Schmidt. And so we'll see where that
53:54
program goes. But yeah, that that's kind of
53:57
the the update, you know, we'll see where the shriek comes out
54:02
on reaction to the quarter. My guess is that people are
54:05
going to be in this wait and see mode C mode where they want to
54:08
see that first batch go up and successfully deployed.
54:11
And by the way, oh, Abel did talk about the time of launch,
54:17
between launch and placement and then actual bringing, you know,
54:21
commercial operations for Bluebird satellites.
54:25
That's, you know, I think that's currently around 45 days,
54:28
whereas they're hoping to get that down to what he
54:31
characterizes 2 weeks, right? So once satellites up there and
54:35
you know, the process to unfold it, turn it on and get it
54:37
working commercially, you know, eventually want to get that to
54:41
two weeks, which is pretty, pretty great.
54:45
Other than that, I think there's some interesting pictures in the
54:49
presentation, which I'm sure Catsy and other space mob, you
54:52
know, they'll tear it down and, and find things that, that, that
54:55
perhaps we haven't, we haven't seen or we missed.
54:58
But yeah, I think overall today was a, a great update and you
55:03
know, we'll see. I'm, I'm excited to, for that
55:06
first batch to go out and to go to the launch in June.
55:10
And yeah, let me actually, I'll just take a quick look, see if
55:14
there's any questions. But yeah, I'm going to cut the
55:18
space soon because I'm exhausted.
55:20
Let's see, do you catch any new analysts on the call expect any
55:24
initiations or any current coverage updates?
55:28
That is a good question. I didn't at that point, I wasn't
55:31
listening that closely to who the analysts were, but let's
55:34
take a look. So I have Bloomberg and they
55:37
list all the analysts who were on the call.
55:39
So it's Bryan Craft of Deutsche Bank, Chris Quilty of Quilty
55:43
Space, Christopher Scholl, UBS, Greg Pendy, Clear St.
55:47
Louis, De Palma. By the way, that guy sounds like
55:49
he's 10 years old, William Blair and then Michael Funk of Bank of
55:53
America, Mike Crawford of B Riley and Scott Surly of Roth
55:58
Capital. So there wasn't any new
56:01
participants. However, we do know that JP
56:04
Morgan and Morgan Stanley participated on the last
56:06
convert. And so it's pretty, I would say
56:10
it's like close to time for them to initiate coverage and maybe
56:14
they all do that at the same time of the SpaceX IPO, but
56:18
we'll see. Oh, that is a reminder that the
56:20
SpaceX IPO is now a month away. And so in terms of tailwinds,
56:26
that's going to be as SpaceX goes out on its roadshow and
56:32
meets with institutions, that's just going to give more exposure
56:36
to the sector. So, so that's, that is a
56:39
positive. Let's see, just going through
56:43
some of these questions. I think that's it.
56:48
Someone just told me they sold. OK, well, good for you.
56:53
But yeah, I think, I think anybody who is selling down here
56:58
at 74 post market, you're going to regret it in a few months.
57:02
But to each his own. That's fine.
57:03
I mean, it's it's up to you, right?
57:05
And I think part of the psychology as well is that
57:11
obviously the space sector, and I pointed this out earlier, the
57:13
space, space sector has done quite well since the beginning
57:15
of the year. And AST did initially in
57:17
January, we were kind of leading performance of the entire
57:21
sector. But now we've, we've come back
57:23
and have underperformed relative to the rest of the sector.
57:27
And we especially after hours today, we, we are going to be
57:30
even more in terms of underperformance.
57:33
However, as I pointed out before, the sector kind of
57:36
trades as a basket and I've seen, you know, I think it's
57:40
important to kind of digest for someone who understands the
57:44
story, digest what was disclosed in this quarter and that it was
57:47
very positive. And yeah, we'll see.
57:49
I mean, for example, I know space investor, he's a big fan
57:54
of red wire. I'm not a big fan of red wire,
57:55
but when I first saw the quarter, I didn't dig into it
57:59
and I didn't have time that day, but I was like, oh, that's a bad
58:01
quarter. And this and, and most of it
58:04
honestly was like the fact that the stock was down.
58:06
So it's like sentiment driven. You know, we have this saying
58:09
nothing drives sentiment more than the price.
58:11
However, red wire did recover. And then, you know, since then,
58:14
it's now, you know, well north of where it was heading into
58:18
earnings, right? It's like a $12.16.
58:21
And so kudos to him for getting that, you know, that called
58:25
right. But then also, I think there is
58:28
this underlying bid to the entire sector.
58:30
And so, you know, if there is some weakness tomorrow, I'm
58:34
going to be allocating more risk and I expect the stock to
58:37
perform well, especially heading into the June launch and the
58:40
SpaceX IPO. So I'm going to end it there.
58:43
Thanks, everyone for joining. I'm sure Kook is going to have
58:46
like a really or I hope he has a really long thread because he's
58:48
going to catch a lot of stuff I missed.
58:50
I'm sure there'll be a lot of ink spilled overnight from
58:53
bears. He said it was awful and from
58:56
people actually understand the stock and the story pointing out
58:59
the good things from the quarter, which I think there was
59:01
quite a bit. The only bad thing again was the
59:04
Q1 numbers relative to consensus, but I wasn't
59:07
expecting anything and I think it's pretty much noise at this
59:10
point. So anyway, thanks very much for
59:13
joining and we'll talk again soon.
59:15
Take care. Thanks for listening to the AST
59:25
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59:46
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