Ever tried to send a text from the Nevada desert or call home from a national‑park trailhead only to watch your phone hunt in vain for a bar of service?
AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS) is betting that those dead zones disappear by the end of the decade. In the last 24 months the company’s BlueWalker 3 testbed relayed the first two‑way voice, video and 5G data sessions directly to everyday smartphones, no bulky antenna, no special handset.
Those early demos proved the physics. Now the real question is whether AST can scale the economics and how high can the stock go by the turn of the decade?
The Mid-Year Snapshot
AST came into 2025 with five Block 1 “BlueBird” satellites already in orbit and another 40 Block 2 craft on the factory floor.
Management expects five launches over the next nine months, enough to light up initial commercial service in the United States, Europe and Japan during the back half of 2025.
All that hardware doesn’t come cheap, but the balance sheet is surprisingly sturdy for a pre‑revenue space start‑up, $874 million in cash as of March 31 and a potential $500 million in export‑credit financing working its way through EXIM Bank and the IFC.
Partnerships Anchor the Business Case
BlueWalker 3’s headline‑grabbing calls were more than stunts, and in fact cemented relationships with AT&T, Vodafone, Rakuten and Verizon, each of which has now tested or signed definitive commercial agreements for direct‑to‑cell service.
In February AT&T and AST completed another video call using the first batch of operational BlueBirds launched last September, proof that the technology survives the trip from lab to orbit.
The carrier momentum matters because AST does not have to build a consumer brand. It simply sells wholesale capacity to mobile‑network operators that already own the billing relationships and retail distribution.
Better yet, launch capacity is no longer the bottleneck. Late last year Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin inked a multi‑mission New Glenn contract that, alongside previously reserved SpaceX Falcon 9s, should put roughly 60 satellites aloft across 2025‑26.
That fleet, plus follow‑on orders, targets roughly 168 satellites by 2029, enough for near‑global 4G/5G coverage.
Crucially, AST’s in‑house assembly line in Midland, Texas is pacing toward six satellites per month, giving the firm control over both manufacturing cadence and cost curve.
Burn Cash Now, Bill Later
First‑quarter operating expenses hit $63.7 million, and revenue was a rounding‑error $0.7 million, mostly stemming from engineering services. That burn rate suggests three years of runway if AST can hold spending flat, but management is budgeting for the bills to rise as launches accelerate.
The silver lining is booked equipment sales to carriers are already showing up in the form of $13.6 million in Q1 gateway orders, and the company guides to $50‑75 million of service revenue in the second half of 2025.
If those dollars land, they should validate the pricing assumptions in AST’s long‑term model.
Competition is Fierce
AST’s head start is real, yet it is hardly alone. SpaceX plans to switch on Direct‑to‑Cell with T‑Mobile in 2026 and ultimately tie thousands of upgraded Starlink satellites into its terrestrial network.
Lynk Global, meanwhile, just topped $85 million in funding for its lower‑capacity store‑and‑forward network.
Apple’s Emergency SOS (powered by Globalstar) already ships on millions of iPhones.
Paradoxically, these heavyweight entrants may help AST by normalizing satellite‑to‑phone as a consumer expectation much like multiple ride‑share apps taught us all to summon cars from our pockets.
What Wall Street Sees
Analyst enthusiasm runs hot. Wall Street’s consensus 12‑month price target sits at $42.40, roughly double the fair value calculation we ran.
Scotia Bank reiterated an “Outperform” and a $47.90 target in May after modeling a U.S. “beta” launch as soon as Q4 2025.
Those numbers hinge on AST hitting its launch cadence and converting memoranda of understanding into hard‑dollar capacity contracts.
A 5‑year Crystal Ball
The bull case by the turn of the decade is a full 168‑satellite constellation is live, addressing perhaps 150 million premium subscribers through carrier partners. At $10 per user per month with a 30 % EBITDA margin, you get $5.4 billion in annual EBITDA. Slap an enterprise‑SaaS‑like multiple of 15× and AST could command an $80 billion enterprise value, 5-6x today’s market cap.
The base case is predicated on only two‑thirds of the fleet is up, serving early‑adopter niches and government customers. Revenue climbs to $2 billion, margins hit 25 %. A 12× multiple yields a $24 billion valuation, roughly a two‑bagger from current levels.
For bears, they’ll cling to launch delays and a capital crunch let SpaceX and Apple lock up the simplest connectivity tiers; AST scrambles for spectrum in crowded L‑band and ends 2030 with <10 million users. Revenue stalling below $500 million and dilution from emergency financing keeps the stock range‑bound is another assumption they’ll make.
AST SpaceMobile is still a pre‑revenue venture whose success depends on flawless execution in rocketry, radio‑physics, regulatory diplomacy and capital markets. Yet it also owns a patent moat, a deep carrier roster and enough cash to reach the cusp of commercialization.
It needs a modest slice of the $1‑trillion global wireless market, the payoff could be enormous. In five years investors will likely view AST either as the Iridium of the 2020s, a survivor that finally found its market, or as the next Blockbuster of orbital telecom. That asymmetry makes the stock volatile, but it also underpins the kind of moon‑shot upside that keeps space nerds and growth investors pressing “buy.”
The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Financhill has a disclosure policy. This post may contain affiliate links or links from our sponsors.