AST SpaceMobile (ASTS $40.97 -4.88%) reports Q3 2026 results on Monday, November 9, after the market closes, with the call at 5:00 p.m. ET, according to its investor relations calendar. The stock goes into the print at $42.30, down 68% from its $133.09 high on May 28 and 42% lower this year, which values the company at about $16.5B across its three share classes.
AST SpaceMobile is still building its network, so the revenue it reports today does not come from phone service. It comes from two things: gateway equipment and software sold to mobile operators preparing for the service, and milestones on U.S. government contracts. Both are lumpy, but the company tells investors how much contracted revenue it expects to recognize over the next twelve months, and that figure has been shrinking all year while the $150M to $200M revenue guidance for 2026 stayed the same. Our answer is a Q3 revenue miss and a full year at the bottom of the guidance.
The data behind this piece
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Why Q3 will miss
The consensus has revenue rising 46% from Q2 to $46.0M. The CFO did say revenue would grow every quarter this year, so a step up is likely. The question is how big, and the company's own backlog disclosure says the contracted part of it is small.
Every quarter, the 10-Q reports the revenue allocated to remaining performance obligations: contract liabilities plus amounts that will be invoiced and recognized later. It has been about $1.2B in each of the last three filings. What changed is the share due within twelve months. It was 9.0% at December 31, 2025, 8.4% at March 31 and 6.6% at June 30. On a $1.2B base that is about $108M, then $101M, then $79M. The press release figure of about $1.30B is the company's own measure of contracted revenue from commercial partners and U.S. government awards, but the 10-Q number is the one that comes with a schedule.
That $79M covers July 2026 through June 2027. Even if every dollar of it landed in the second half of 2026, the company would still need about $24.5M of revenue from contracts signed after June 30 to reach the $150M low end of its guidance, and about $41.8M to reach the consensus.
New orders are possible. Gateway equipment is sold for a point-in-time delivery, so an order placed in July can be shipped and booked in September, and the company said in August it had received more than $125M of new U.S. government awards. But the twelve-month figure fell from March to June, the quarter those awards came in, which suggests most of that money is scheduled further out.
Last year shows how back-loaded the revenue can be. Q3 2025 brought in $14.7M and Q4 2025 brought in $54.3M, which took the second half to $69.0M, inside the $50M to $75M range the company had guided. We expect the same shape: a moderate Q3 and a much larger Q4.
Our forecast for Q3 and Q4
| Q3 2026F (ours) | Q3 consensus | Q4 2026F (ours) | Q4 consensus | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $40.0M | $46.0M (8 analysts, range $40.0M to $50.0M) | $66.0M | about $75.0M (implied by the full-year consensus) |
| Gateway equipment and software | $28.0M | not published | $40.0M | not published |
| U.S. government services | $12.0M | not published | $26.0M | not published |
| Adjusted operating expenses, excluding cost of revenues | $110.0M | |||
| Loss per Class A share | -$0.48 | -$0.45 (6 analysts, range -$0.52 to -$0.32) | -$0.44 (6 analysts) | |
| Full-year 2026 revenue | $152.3M | $167.2M (12 analysts, range $151.0M to $186.0M) |
Our full-year number sits at the bottom of the $150M to $200M guidance, close to the lowest of the twelve estimates ($151.0M).
Where the revenue comes from
AST SpaceMobile splits revenue into products and services. Products are gateway equipment, software and related services sold to mobile network operators building the ground side of the network. Services are milestones on U.S. government work, directly or through prime contractors. The SpaceMobile service itself has no revenue yet: “The SpaceMobile Service has not been launched and therefore has not yet generated any revenue,” the 10-Q says.
Gateways. Product revenue was $13.4M in Q1 and $24.4M in Q2. Of those, $7.9M and $1.9M were sales to SatCo, the European joint venture with Vodafone, which the 10-Q reports as related-party revenue. The equity investment in SatCo was written down to zero by June 30 as AST SpaceMobile took its share of the venture's losses, so we do not count on large SatCo orders. The best guide to Q3 is inventory, which more than doubled to $28.4M from $12.0M at the end of 2025. Q2's product cost was $22.4M against $24.4M of revenue, a margin of 8.3%. If the June inventory is gateway hardware waiting to ship, at that margin it is worth about $31.0M of revenue. We assume $28.0M, since some of it is likely meant for later deliveries among the nearly 50 gateways the company says are in various stages of completion, installation and planning.
Government. Services revenue jumped from $1.3M in Q1 to $7.1M in Q2, after awards with an aggregate value of more than $125M. The company recognizes it as milestones are completed. The president said the government share of the backlog is a minority but expected to scale “in the near term most significantly.” We assume $12.0M for Q3 and $26.0M for Q4, when the year's milestones tend to land.
Margins and costs
Gross margin on these sales is thin. Q2 product revenue of $24.4M cost $22.4M to deliver, and services revenue of $7.1M cost $1.2M. So the revenue line matters less to the loss than the cost of building the network.
Adjusted operating expenses excluding cost of revenues, the company's main cost measure, were $66.8M in Q4 2025, $79.8M in Q1 and $95.9M in Q2. Management guided $105M to $115M for Q3 and about $400M for the year. We use $110M.
On a reported basis, Q2's operating expenses were $329.1M. That included $84.1M of depreciation, amortization and stock-based compensation, and a $125.9M loss on involuntary conversion, which the 10-Q describes as the write-off of the BB7 satellite, net of insurance recoveries. We assume $60M of stock-based compensation and $27M of depreciation in Q3, up from $20.7M as the satellites launched this summer go into service, and no further write-off.
Below the operating line, interest income ($27.7M in Q2) roughly offsets interest expense ($26.1M), and both rise in Q3: the July notes add about $4.7M of coupon a quarter, and their proceeds earn interest until they are spent. Holders of units in the operating subsidiary, AST LLC, absorb about 23% of the loss as a noncontrolling interest. That gives a net loss to Class A shareholders of about $144M, or -$0.48 a share on 301M shares. The -$0.45 consensus is almost exactly Q2's loss per share before the BB7 write-off, which suggests analysts have not built in the higher Q3 cost guidance.
Balance sheet and dilution
AST SpaceMobile ended June with $2.29B of cash and equivalents and $434.6M of restricted cash, about $2.7B in total, and says it had over $3.7B pro forma after the July notes. Debt was $3.02B, of which $2.55B was convertible notes, including $1,075.0M of 2.25% notes due 2036 issued in February, plus a $420.0M UBS bridge loan. In July it added $1.15B of 1.625% notes due 2034. The $1.0B base offering brought net proceeds of about $983.6M, of which $96.9M paid for capped calls, and the initial purchasers' option added $150M. The notes convert at about $79.57 a share, and the capped calls offset dilution up to $149.20.
The spending is large. Capital expenditures were $261.6M in Q1 and $597.6M in Q2, and the company guided $350M to $425M for Q3. Its estimate of the average capital cost per Block 2 satellite, including launch, is $21M to $23M for a constellation of over 90 satellites. It also has obligations to Ligado for L-band spectrum: a $550.0M contingent payment and spectrum usage payments of at least $80.0M a year, and it advanced Ligado $100.0M in the first half.
There were 299.7M Class A, 11.2M Class B and 78.2M Class C shares outstanding at June 30, 389.1M in all. The Class B and C shares correspond to units of the operating subsidiary held outside the public company, which is why about 23% of the loss goes to the noncontrolling interest.
What management said
“As I've previously noted, we expect revenue to build sequentially each quarter during 2026 with contributions from both commercial revenue, primarily gateway sales revenue, and U.S. government contracts.”
Andy Johnson, CFO, Q2 2026 earnings call
“I am pleased to confirm that we remain on track to meet our full year 2026 revenue guidance of $150 to $200 million.”
Andy Johnson, CFO, Q2 2026 earnings call
“As we get ready to ship BlueBirds 14, 15, and 16 and continue expanding our constellation with production ongoing through BlueBird 46, we are preparing to initiate beta services with select strategic partners.”
Abel Avellan, Chairman and CEO, Q2 2026 results release
“nothing's changed on our expectation and our goal of reaching, approaching a billion of revenue in our first year of commercial service.”
Scott Wisniewski, President, Q2 2026 earnings call
The CFO said the company is targeting about 45 BlueBird satellites in orbit by early 2027, with 13 in orbit at the August report. On revenue recognition for the phone service, the president said it “should begin for commercial service when commercial service begins,” which he expects next year. The backlog figures also leave out the revenue share from operators' subscribers, because the 10-Q treats that consideration as too uncertain to include.
How the market is positioned
- Short interest is high and steady. 65.9M shares were sold short at the October 15 settlement, 22.0% of the Class A shares outstanding at June 30, against 64.7M at the end of June. At recent volume that is 3.2 days to cover.
- Earnings days have moved the stock 6.4% on average. The close-to-close moves on the session after the last five reports were +8.4% (August 2025), -1.2% (November 2025), +6.6% (March 2026), -11.6% (May 2026) and +4.2% (August 2026).
- One insider bought on the open market. Director Adriana Cisneros bought 10,822 shares on August 31 at $57.00 to $58.87, about $0.62M. The stock is about 26% below that price now.
- Executives sold earlier, near the highs. The CFO sold 45,809 shares at $93.81 on June 11, and Huiwen Yao, an officer, sold 40,000 shares at $96.37 on June 5 and another 40,000 at $58.93 on September 16 under a Rule 10b5-1 plan. Shanti Gupta, an officer, sold 12,000 at $58.89 on September 16.
Our assumptions
| Assumption | Our value | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Gateway equipment and software revenue, Q3 | $28.0M | $24.4M in Q2; $28.4M of inventory at June 30, worth about $31.0M at Q2's margin |
| U.S. government services revenue, Q3 | $12.0M | $7.1M in Q2 after more than $125M of new awards |
| Product cost of revenue | 91.7% of product revenue | Q2: $22.4M on $24.4M |
| Adjusted operating expenses, excluding cost of revenues | $110.0M | Guidance of $105M to $115M |
| Stock-based compensation | $60.0M | $63.4M in Q2, $55.4M in Q1 |
| Depreciation and amortization | $27.0M | $20.7M in Q2, plus the satellites launched this summer |
| Interest expense, net of interest income | about $2M of income | $26.1M of expense and $27.7M of income in Q2, plus the July notes and their proceeds |
| Noncontrolling interest share of the loss | 23.0% | Q2: $69.0M of $299.9M |
| Weighted Class A shares | 301M | 299.1M in Q2; 299.7M outstanding at June 30 |
| Q4 revenue | $66.0M | Q4 2025 was $54.3M; $63.7M reaches the guidance low end |
Our downside case, $34.0M, has gateway sales flat with Q2 at $24.0M and government revenue at $10.0M. Our upside case, $48.0M, ships the whole June inventory, about $31.0M, and books $17.0M of government milestones. Only the upside case clears the consensus, and only by 4%.
Risks to our call
- New orders can ship inside the quarter. Gateway sales are recognized at delivery, so a large order placed and shipped in Q3 would not have appeared in the June backlog.
- Government milestones are lumpy. One large milestone, or a new award with an early deliverable, could add more than our $12.0M.
- The backlog figures are rounded. The 10-Q gives the total as “approximately $1.2 billion” and the twelve-month share to one decimal, so the $79M could be a few million higher or lower.
- The loss per share depends on non-cash items. Stock-based compensation was $63.4M in Q2 and depreciation will rise as satellites enter service. Every $10M on either moves the loss by about $0.03 a share.
What to watch on the call
- The full-year guidance. Whether the company reaffirms $150M to $200M, and where in the range it points.
- The twelve-month backlog. The new remaining performance obligation figure and the share due within a year, the clearest read on Q4 and the first half of 2027.
- Government awards signed since June, their value and when their milestones fall.
- Beta service. Timing with the U.S. operators, and how many satellites the beta needs.
- Launch schedule and satellites in orbit against the target of about 45 by early 2027, after the BB7 loss and the Blue Origin launch anomaly in May that the president said the company is “not betting on” in its numbers.
- Cash. Q3 capital spending against the $350M to $425M guidance, and any update on the Ligado payments.
Sources
- Q2 2026 results release: 8-K filed August 10, 2026 (accession 0001193125-26-342540)
- Q2 2026 quarterly report, revenue by type, remaining performance obligations, SatCo and Ligado: 10-Q filed August 10, 2026 (accession 0001193125-26-342550)
- Q1 2026 quarterly report: 10-Q filed May 11, 2026 (accession 0001193125-26-216950)
- 2025 annual report: 10-K filed March 2, 2026 (accession 0001780312-26-000006)
- Q3 2025 quarterly report: 10-Q filed November 10, 2025 (accession 0001193125-25-274391)
- 2034 convertible notes: 8-K filed July 20, 2026 (accession 0001493152-26-033912)
- Q2 2026 earnings call transcript, August 10, 2026
- Share prices, analyst consensus, guidance history, short interest and insider trades: Equibles
- Forecast and assumptions: Equibles Research model, October 29, 2026
This article is our analysis of public filings and our own financial model. It is not investment advice, and forecasts can be wrong. Equibles staff may hold positions in the securities discussed.