AST SpaceMobile, Inc.

AST SpaceMobile, Inc.

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Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptMarch 2, 2026

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to AST SpaceMobile's Fourth Quarter 2025 Business Update.

Please be advised that today's call is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Max Colbert, Investor Relations Manager of AST SpaceMobile.

Thank you. You may begin.

Max Colbert

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, I'm also joined by Chairman and CEO, Abel Avellan; President, Scott Wisniewski; and CFO and Chief Legal Officer, Andy Johnson.

Let me refer you to slide two of the presentation, which contains our safe harbor disclaimer. During today's call, we may make certain forward-looking statements.

These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions, and as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements on this call.

For more information about these risks and uncertainties, please refer to the Risk Factors section of AST SpaceMobile's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other documents filed by AST SpaceMobile with the SEC from time to time. Also, after our initial remarks, we will be starting our Q&A section with questions submitted in advance by our shareholders.

Scott Wisniewski

For those of you who may be new to our company and mission, there are nearly 6 billion mobile phones in use today around the world, but many of us still experience gaps in coverage as we live, work, and travel. Additionally, there are billions of people without cellular broadband, and who remain unconnected to the global economy.

The markets we are pursuing at AST SpaceMobile are massive, and the problem we are solving is important, and touches nearly all of us. In this backdrop, AST SpaceMobile is building the first and only global cellular broadband network in space to operate directly with everyday unmodified mobile devices, supported by our extensive IP and patent portfolio.

It is now my pleasure to pass this over to Chairman and CEO, Abel Avellan, who will go through our activities since our last public update.

Abel Avellan

Thank you, Scott. For the first time in 2025, AST SpaceMobile became a revenue-generating business as it significantly advanced all key aspects of our operations, including commercial, government, manufacturing, spectrum rights, IP portfolio, and capital position.

The combination of these efforts resulted in the successful launch and unfolding of our next-generation BlueBird satellite, BlueBird 6, the largest ever commercial communications array deployed in low Earth orbit, to enable the first and only global space cellular broadband network for government and commercial customers. On the financial front, during 2025, we raised over $3.5 billion in capital, and reported revenue of over $70 million for the full year, and signed over $1 billion of minimum committed revenue.

Operationally, we plan to ramp our satellite manufacturing efforts and launch cadence this year while rapidly accelerating our government and commercial businesses. We entered 2026 with strong momentum and clear vision as we lead the space-based cellular broadband industry, a market that we invented.

2026 will be the year we scale our space-based direct-to-device constellation from initial commercial activation to start of commercial service with mobile network operator partners in key markets like the United States, Europe, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and other key strategic markets like the US government. In just over 1 year since the orbital launch of our first five Block 1 BlueBird satellites, we developed our Block 2 BlueBird program, which is roughly 3.5 times larger and 10 times the capacity of BlueBird 1 to 5, breaking our previous record on both size and capabilities.

Then scale, test, launch, and successfully unfolded BlueBird 6, our next-generation satellite of approximately 2,400 square feet. BlueBird 7, identical to BlueBird 6, is encapsulated and ready to launch within the next New Glenn launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral and is awaiting orbital launch, which is expected in March.

Our upcoming launch advances our deployment goals of aboard New Glenn, which features a 7-meter fairing, enabling twice the payload volume of the 5-meter class commercial launch vehicles to support up to eight of our largest ever Block 2 BlueBird satellites. We expect to fully utilize New Glenn fairing capacity as we progress through our orbital launch plans.

We are especially excited to share this milestone with many of you who we hope will join us in Florida during our next launch. Looking ahead, we are expecting 2026 to be very active year, particularly as we progress into second half.

We remain on track to achieve our target of deploying 45 to 60 satellites into low Earth orbit by the end of this year, with current expectations closer to 60 satellites ready to ship and 45 satellites in orbit. We continue to expect launches planned every 1 to 2 months on average, starting with our first New Glenn launch expected in March.

The New Glenn launch vehicle is completing final readiness for our fully encapsulated satellite, which was handed off on February 18. Importantly, this launch will be the first New Glenn launch to use a previously flown first stage.

Which support our launch cadence during 2026, as we expect the New Glenn booster to be reused every 30 days or less after our upcoming launch. Our launch plans include a total of 12 additional contracted launches across several launch vehicles.

Lastly, we also recently signed an additional agreement to integrate our satellite with a new heavy launch vehicle to be on a standby in their manifest. We are laser-focused and working tirelessly on delivering our micron phased arrays and full satellite production goals.

On the manufacturing front, we continue to ramp our operations. We exited 2025 having reached a production capacity to support up to six satellites worth of micron and phased array per month.

We expect to achieve testing, assembly, and integration cadence of six satellites per month in the first half of 2026. BlueBird 8 to 29 are in various stage of production, and we are scheduled to complete assembly of 40 satellites equivalent of micron by the first half of 2026, bringing us to BlueBird 46.

A detailed cadence of our '25 and '26 deployment plan is shown in the company quarterly presentation found on our IR website. After BlueBird 7, our satellite will support a stackable configuration of 3, 4, 6, and 8 satellites per launch, which allow us to meet our 2026 deployment goals.

Additionally, we anticipate our novel ASIC chip will be integrated into our Block 2 BlueBird satellite during the first half of 2026 to support 10 GHz of processing bandwidth per satellite, which enable us to exceed the capabilities of up to 120 megabits per second on our in-orbit Block 1 BlueBird satellites. These data rates are high enough to achieve native cellular capability that consumers now expect.

Everywhere, from areas not served or not served good enough by terrestrial connectivity. Another key enabler in producing the largest ever commercial communications array at scale is our 95% vertically integrated manufacturing strategy.

Over the past several months, we have expanded our manufacturing site both in Midland, Texas and Homestead, Florida, including acquiring a fourth site in Midland for dedicated micron production, the building block of our satellites. We will soon be over 0.5 million square feet of manufacturing and operational space globally, providing us with greater manufacturing and work capabilities with a tighter control over the manufacturing process from end to end.

This rigorous effort, strengthened by our skilled workforce, enable us to proactively manage nearly every step in the process, including securing long-lead materials well in advance of satellite assembly, while keeping our materials and components cost low. Simply put, we are the first company in history of commercial satellite manufacturing to produce satellites of our size and power at scale.

Together, our key technology differentiation in the size of our satellite, spectrum availability, and custom ASIC that support today's capability of cellular broadband from space, supported by extensive portfolio of over 3,400 patent and patent-pending claims. 2026 is the year we scale commercial operations.

We are the only company capable of delivering 4G and 5G and in the future 6G broadband speeds, sufficient for voice calls, voice over LTE, live video calls, streaming, and full internet access, directly to unmodified devices. Our technology is anchored by our ability to manufacture the largest commercial communications array ever placed into low Earth orbits, creating a durable technology advantage.

Our satellites enable digital beamforming and are capable of multi-carrier aggregation in multiple frequencies, supporting simultaneous users per beam, behaving like a terrestrial cell tower from space. When combined with our integrated ground space gateway architecture and growing commercial ecosystem with over 50 leading global mobile network operator partners who collectively cover nearly 3 billion subscribers.

As Scott will discuss in more detail, we continue to expand our commercial ecosystem. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we announced definitive commercial agreements with Verizon in United States and STC Group in Saudi Arabia and other key markets across the Middle East and Africa.

As part of our 10-year agreement with STC Group, we received a prepayment of $175 million in 2025, indicative of the ambitions we both share in bringing connectivity gaps and deliver cellular broadband directly to devices. Recently, we announced partnership with Orange, Telefónica, CK Hutchison, Taiwan Mobile, and progressing initiatives with Vodafone to bring our direct-to-device cellular broadband service to their markets, who are now part of our commercial ecosystem with over 50 leading global mobile network operator partners who collectively cover nearly 3 billion subscribers.

To the date, our commercial advancement have positioned us to secure over $1 billion in total contracted revenue commitments from our commercial partners. As a reminder, our comprehensive spectrum strategy is defined by our access to approximately 1,150 MHz of low-band and mid-band tunable MNO spectrum globally, which include 45 MHz of MSS lower mid-band spectrum access in North America and 60 MHz of licensed S-band spectrum priority rights outside North America.

Our low-band spectrum strategy centered around the use of premium multi-operator 850 MHz cellular spectrum, which has important characteristics like longer reach, better penetration, and compatibility with existing 3GPP standards and devices. We have further strengthened this advantage through strategic MSS and cellular spectrum, including both premium lower band, mid-band, L-band, and S-band spectrum priority rights, positioning us to reliably deliver cellular broadband service at a global scale.

We also make significant progress in our government business as our satellite technology continue to be used by the United States government for dual-use and dedicated applications. National security is a key priority for the United States, and we continue to see willingness to rapidly adopt, innovate, forward-looking technologies like ours.

Taken together, these accomplishments and the competitive advantages we have built give us a significant momentum as we progress to 2026 as the partner of choice for the global mobile network operators and unique non-communications capabilities for the US government. With that, I will turn the call back to Scott.

Scott Wisniewski

Thank you, Abel. I want to take this time to reflect on our business accomplishments in 2025, and how we see the business evolving over 2026 and 2027.

Last year, 2025, was the year we activated our revenue engine, with record revenue of over $70 million, achieving the upper end of our revenue guidance. We are no longer a pre-revenue company.

During the year, revenue was primarily driven by commercial gateway deliveries and milestones completed from our government contracts. We delivered 15 commercial gateways to MNO partners in the second half of 2025.

Importantly, these sales are a leading indicator that our MNO partners are preparing for SpaceMobile commercial service and making investments ahead of that rollout. This was also a well-diversified set of initial gateway deliveries across nine different customers across five continents, which starts to paint the picture of our initial commercial markets in the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, the Middle East, and Africa.

In terms of signing contracts, the major customer deals for 2025 were definitive commercial agreements with Verizon and STC Group, joining AT&T and Vodafone. We continue to see heavy engagement from MNOs, resulting in good progress deepening and growing our partner ecosystem, taking advantage of our base of over 50 global MNOs with nearly 3 billion subscribers.

We and our mobile network partners also recently announced additional specific initiatives with Vodafone, Orange, Telefónica, CK Hutchison, Taiwan Mobile, among others, while formally unveiling Satellite Connect Europe and its leadership team as our European distribution joint venture with Vodafone. In 2026, we expect more MNOs to join the AST SpaceMobile network, and we expect to harvest our pipeline for many additional definitive commercial agreements as the contractual relationships mature with our existing partners beyond the investor MNOs.

The US government was also a significant contributor to 2025 revenue. During the year, we executed against our existing 10 contracts across an expanding list of interested agencies, developing and testing additional capabilities using our in-orbit infrastructure, capabilities critical to US national security, including the Golden Dome project.

The revenue derived from US government is not dependent on full constellation deployment, but is more scalable by satellite count, which makes it an early reliable contributor to revenue. As a reminder, the goal of these contracts is to develop capabilities that could grow into programs of record, with billions of annual revenue potential in aggregate for missions incredibly important to US national security.

We also recently announced our status as a prime contractor to the US government and received a $30 million contract award from the United States Space Development Agency for the Europa Track 2 commercial solutions program. This contract focuses on developing immediate, resilient, and low-latency tactical satellite communications directly between government and devices.

The award demonstrates how commercial space innovation can be rapidly integrated into national security missions. The award further validates the dual-use nature of our technology for both commercial and national security applications.

Regarding the Golden Dome project, we continue to execute against our current contracts with the Space Development Agency, and we were recently awarded an IDIQ contract under the United States Missile Defense Agency's SHIELD program. These awards position us to compete for a wide range of future activities to support one of the largest and most significant United States defense programs in history.

As we turn the page into 2026, we see this year as an inflection point as we enter commercial service with our initial MNO partners, while also continuing to generate revenue from the commercial gateway and government strategies. Before the impact of commercial service revenue later in the year, we expect revenue to at least double versus 2025.

In fact, our 2026 expectations are further de-risked given our contracted pipeline, which provides upside with additional government contract wins. Looking ahead to 2027 with a large-scale constellation in orbit, we see a really, really strong outlook for both commercial and government service revenue to hundreds of millions of subscribers via a low-friction service offering provided when the subscriber needs it most.

We also expect government revenue to continue to multiply in 2027, with significant upside depending on certain contract outcomes. We see the opportunity in 2027 approaching $1 billion in annual revenue, importantly comprised of revenue both long-term contracted or highly recurring in nature, subject to achievement of commercial and government service objectives.

Going into the end of the decade, we see further multiples of revenue upside, driven by greater subscriber uptake and market extension. All told, we are confident that our business strategy has strong competitive differentiation and is supported by a growing list of industry tailwinds.

We enter 2026 with the assurance and conviction needed to win in an ever-expanding TAM. I am now happy to pass the call over to Andy to walk through our financial update.

Andy Johnson

Thanks, Scott, and good afternoon, everyone. During the fourth quarter of 2025, we continued to execute on our commercial objectives while expanding manufacturing, and importantly, significantly strengthening our financial position to support our core objectives in 2026.

2025 was best described as a year of scaling at AST SpaceMobile. We began the year focused on building out manufacturing to support our targeted launch schedule through 2026, and we ended the year with the launch of our first Block 2 BlueBird satellite, BB6, a seminal moment in the history of our company.

As we speak with you today, we have 29 Block 2 BlueBird satellites in various states of production and are on target to complete the assembly of 40 satellites equivalent of microns during the first half of 2026. For 2026, AST SpaceMobile's global workforce is intensely focused on completing our Block 2 BlueBird satellites to support the orbital launch of 45 to 60 total satellites during the year as we work towards commercial service activation in the second half.

As Scott described, our focus on launch cadence and commercial service activation in 2026 is complemented by our increasing revenue opportunities, both from commercial and US government partners. We are now a revenue-generating company, and we will work hard to achieve profitability from our growing revenue initiatives that are intrinsically linked to the increasing number of Block 2 BlueBird satellites that we put into low Earth orbit.

Our rapid growth is supported by a fortified balance sheet. Not only do we now have the cash to support the full build-out and launch of a constellation of over 100 satellites to provide worldwide SpaceMobile service, our most recent financing activities position us to accelerate the deployment of our controlled spectrum bands on a global basis, monetize the capabilities of our proprietary technology to capture the evolving commercial opportunities related to artificial intelligence, enhance investment in government space opportunities in the United States, reduce our higher-interest debt, and pursue opportunistic investments to accelerate our SpaceMobile services and capabilities.

All the while, we continue to balance a prudent approach to our spending while moving quickly to protect and capitalize on our first-mover advantage of bringing space-based broadband connectivity direct to unmodified smartphones in the rapidly growing direct-to-device market. Our intentional focus on investing in operational growth led to higher adjusted operating expenses and capital expenditures in Q4 of 2025, both consistent with our expectations and previously communicated during our Q3 2025 earnings call.

Importantly, our revenue ramp continued in Q4 with significant revenue growth from commercial gateway deliveries, services, and contracted milestones completed for the US government, resulting in 2025 revenue near the top of our guidance range. Moving to the operating and capital metrics slide, let's review the key metrics for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025 in more detail.

On the first chart, for the fourth quarter, we incurred non-GAAP adjusted operating expenses of $95.7 million versus $67.7 million in the third quarter. As a reminder, non-GAAP adjusted operating expenses exclude non-cash operating costs, including depreciation and amortization and stock-based compensation.

The quarter-over-quarter increase of $28.0 million resulted primarily from a $23.4 million increase in adjusted cost of revenues related to gateway deliveries, the first revenue from our MNO partners, together with a slight $3.5 million increase in adjusted R&D costs, a $3.0 million increase in adjusted engineering services costs, this partially offset by a $1.9 million decrease in adjusted general and administrative costs. Our Q4 adjusted operating expenses excluding those adjusted costs of revenue would be $66.8 million compared to $62.2 million in Q3 of 2025, which is in line with the mid-$60 million guidance that I previously provided.

For the full year of 2025, non-GAAP adjusted operating expenses less adjusted costs of revenue totaled $224.8 million compared to $151.8 million for the full year of 2024. The primary drivers of the increase were growth in our workforce, including contractors and consultants, our expanded production facilities, and other professional fees, including legal fees related to our spectrum and financing transactions.

Turning now to the second chart on the slide, our capital expenditures for the fourth quarter of 2025 were approximately $407 million versus approximately $259 million for the third quarter of 2025. This figure was made up primarily of capitalized direct materials, labor for our Block 2 BlueBird satellites, and payments made in connection with multiple launch contracts, with the balance relating to facility and production equipment expenditures.

This amount was above the quarterly guidance of $275 to $325 million that I provided during our last earnings call, mainly due to intentional growth investments to accelerate satellite material purchases and the timing of launch contract payments. For the first quarter of 2026, we estimate that our adjusted operating expenses excluding cost of revenues will be in the range of approximately $70 to $80 million as we add to our workforce and continue to design, manufacture, launch, and operate our growing satellite constellation, as well as pursue the monetization of our L and S-band spectrum usage rights.

We expect our capital expenditures to remain flat in Q1 2026 with the fourth quarter of 2025, and it will come in at a range of somewhere between $350 to $425 million, primarily driven by the timing of launch payments related to our near-term launches, which, as I previously explained, vary from quarter to quarter. We continue to estimate that the average capital costs, including direct materials and launch costs, for our constellation of over 90 Block 2 BlueBird satellites will fall in the range of $21 million to $23 million per satellite.

Our cost-per-satellite estimates are subject to fluctuations based on dynamic geopolitical factors which could impact our costs. As a reminder, the timing of the changes in our adjusted operating expenses and capital expenditures, as I've just described, could be delayed or may not be realized due to a variety of factors.

Our planned revenue ramp continued during the fourth quarter, and we expect to continue to grow in 2026 holistically. With respect to revenue generation, we believe we can enable continuous SpaceMobile service across key markets such as the United States, Europe, Japan, and other strategic markets with the launch and operation of approximately 45 to 60 BlueBird satellites, and additional strategic worldwide markets with the launch and operation of approximately 90 BlueBird satellites.

Further, as we continue to launch and deploy our constellation, we will continue to support US government applications, currently ongoing and accelerating as our constellation grows. In the fourth quarter, we recognized revenue of $54.3 million, primarily driven by gateway hardware sales and various US government service milestone achievements.

Additionally, in Q4, we recognized revenue in connection with the provision of critical consulting services for an MNO partner. For the full year of 2025, we achieved revenue of $70.9 million, representing the top end of our 2025 revenue guidance range of $50 to $75 million.

Now turning to our revenue expectations in 2026, we manage the top line with the focus on full year performance given the quarterly variability inherent to our business, including the timing of contract signings, equipment sales, and milestone achievements. As a result, we believe our revenue performance is best evaluated on a full year basis.

As we continue advancing our launch and network activation initiatives, we expect revenue to grow meaningfully relative to our 2025 financial performance. Specifically, we expect to generate full year 2026 revenue in the range of $150 to $200 million.

We expect revenue to continue to be driven by gateway deliveries, achievement of contracted milestones for the US government, MNO consulting services, with potential upside related to the recognition of initial commercial service revenue. Quarterly revenue will likely vary significantly depending on achievement of milestones and the timing of customer activities.

We believe that approximately half of the revenue opportunity within our commercial pipeline this year is already booked or contracted. The remaining portion consists of a combination of advanced stage opportunities that have not yet been signed, as well as net new business we expect to secure over the course of the year.

As previously noted, we anticipate government-related revenue growth to be driven by the factors outlined earlier in Scott's remarks. The achievement of our revenue plan remains subject to several contingencies, including the successful launch and deployment of Block 2 BlueBird satellites related to US government applications contractual milestone achievements, critical gateway equipment sales to our MNO partners in support of their anticipated commercialization efforts of SpaceMobile service, and service revenues in connection with the activation of our commercial service provided by our existing and planned deployed and operational satellites.

Finally, on the last chart on the slide, on a pro forma basis, inclusive of cash raised in February via the convertible notes offering with the 2.25% 10-year coupon at an effective strike price of $116.30 per share and the available liquidity under the at-the-market, or ATM, facility, our cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash as of December 31, 2025, was approximately $3.9 billion. Primary drivers for this cash increase include the execution of the two convertible notes offerings in October of 2025 and February of 2026 for a total of approximately $2.2 billion of net proceeds, and approximately $706 million of net proceeds raised from the 2025 ATM facilities during Q4, leaving approximately $80 million available under that facility.

In addition to capital raised via the recent 2.25% 10-year convertible notes, we also took action since our last earnings call by further reducing our outstanding debt related to the January 2025 and July 2025 convertible notes each due in 2032. Following the February equitization transactions, we have now converted approximately $457 million of the outstanding $460 million of the January convertible notes into 19.2 million Class A shares and $250 million of the outstanding $575 million of the July notes into 4.5 million Class A shares.

We will continue to look at attractive debt reduction efforts, including convertible notes, as the year progresses. Given the current strength of our balance sheet that now includes cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash and available liquidity under the ATM facility of over $3.9 billion on a pro forma basis as of December 31, we are now not only fully funded to manufacture and launch a constellation of over 100 satellites to provide worldwide SpaceMobile service, but we have increased our financial flexibility to make further investments to expedite the timing of and augment the capabilities of our SpaceMobile service.

At this time, we do not have any plans to pursue additional convertible debt. The combination of increasing commercial and government opportunities, rapidly scaling manufacturing and satellite launch operations, and a fortified balance sheet firmly positions AST SpaceMobile to achieve our objectives on behalf of all of our stakeholders in 2026 and beyond.

I'm incredibly proud of the significant progress our company made in 2025, backed by the intense focus and tireless efforts of our worldwide workforce. It's now time to further execute on our launch cadence to bring SpaceMobile service to connect the unconnected in the coming periods.

With that, this completes the presentation component of our business update call, and I'll pass it back to Scott. Scott?

Scott Wisniewski

Thank you, Andy. Before we go to the queue of analyst questions, would like to address a few of the questions submitted by our investors.

Operator, could you please start us off with the first question?

Operator

Justin from Georgia asks: "Any interesting learnings from BB6 and 7? Is the production of composite satellites going to be vastly different?

Any unforeseen delays?"

Abel Avellan

Thank you, Justin, for the question. BB6, it is the largest phased array ever deployed in space, is 3.5 times bigger than our previous deployments, which were also the world record on size.

Going through that first deployment at 2,400 square feet successfully, learned how to capture, control, and manage the satellite at that size, will allow us to actually do it much more faster as we do 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 satellites that are incoming. Yes, that was a very, very important milestone in learning how to operate, deploy, and fly something of this size, which it will help us to do it faster in the next deployments.

The other thing that will happen going forward, passing 6 and 7, is that we're stacking these satellites. We're not be launching individual satellites anymore.

They will be packed in group of either 3, 4, 6, or 8 in a single launch. That is what will allow us to meet our launch cadence of this year, which we are expecting 45 satellites in orbit and 60 satellites ready to ship during 2026.

Operator

Justin also asks: "Is there an updated timeline for the mid-band constellation for using L and S-band spectrum?"

Abel Avellan

Yes, there is. We're planning to start launching the mid-band constellation by the end of the year.

The mid-band constellation have the advantage of combining 3GPP standard operator-owned frequencies and also our L and S-bands, which combined give a great flexibility to the offering, and also allow us to continue to increase the data rate capacities that we have in our system, going way above our 120 megabits per second that we already have in Block 1. That allows a combination of IMT spectrum, which we see it like a run extension to extend capability in places where there is not spectrum light up, to overlay a spectrum in our L and S in order to cover all locations as a supplement and an augmentation of the terrestrial network, with data rate that far exceeds our 120 mega our current 120 megabit per second in the low-band Block 1 satellites.

With the larger satellites and with access to combine in certain regions to over 100 MHz of spectrum combining the spectrum of our network partners and our own, this will give a true broadband experience on a global basis.

Operator

Lydon from New Zealand asks: "With the larger designs complete and being produced, do you anticipate future R&D or new product lines? This may be data centers, exclusive military constellations, collecting data on usage, providing aircraft and ship traffic radar, etc."

Abel Avellan

Thank you, Lydon. Listen, the most difficult aspect of the R&D with the launch, deployment, and usage of our BB6, the core aspect of it is complete.

The ability to produce a lot of power, the ability to have a very large aperture with very sensitive aperture, the ability to have many, many gigahertz of processing power with our own ASIC, the ability to do it cost-effectively with our own power generation technology. All of that R&Ds have been completed and is integral part of what we have and what we're operating, and as you said, been completed.

Now we do see many other opportunities for the technology that we're starting to see usage of them. One is radar, another is power generation, another one is multiplying the spectrum usage.

We believe in combining our large aperture with our AI capability will create a multiplier for the spectrum. The 50 MHz that we have, it will feel a multiple of that.

It could be three times that, it could be 10 times that. We see a lot of opportunity combining all this capability, including very precise geolocation, radar, communications, all that wrapped up with an AI infrastructure.

We think that is a significant additional value that we can create with our infrastructure and the already-invested R&D.

Operator

Kevin from Vancouver asks: "Can you share more color on the most recent $1 billion convertible note offering? Many investors are confused as your current liquidity was already approximately $3 billion and sufficient for around 100 satellites.

Were there any specific opportunities in mind when you issued the offering, or is it really, quote, 'just in case' something pops up?"

Andy Johnson

Thanks for that question, Kevin. This is Andy.

It's absolutely the case that in Q4, when we finished the convertible in October, we were in a position to fully fund the worldwide constellation at 100-plus satellites. Nothing has changed on that front, and the convertible deal that we did at just over $1 billion in February provides us essentially extra flexibility to look at investments that go beyond that first 100 constellation.

What I mean by that is, number one, we can accelerate the deployment of our controlled global spectrum with this added fund. We also have the opportunity to monetize our technology to capture commercial opportunities related to AI, which are increasingly coming our way.

We will look to deploy funds to enhance our investment in government space opportunities in the United States. We've talked about our debt profile; these funds provide us flexibility to look at reducing higher-interest debt that we currently have.

Finally, opportunistically, any investments that help us accelerate the time to bring SpaceMobile service and capabilities will be a good use of these funds as well. I would just close by noting that we've confirmed that we have no current plans to look at an additional convertible deal.

We feel that the balance sheet is where it needs to be to provide us the opportunity to execute our objectives in the near and mid-term.

Scott Wisniewski

With that, I'd like to thank our shareholders for submitting those questions. Operator, let's open up the call to analyst questions now.

Operator

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad.

A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove yourself from the queue.

For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions.

Our first question comes from the line of Griffin Boss with B. Riley Securities.

Please proceed with your question.

Griffin Boss

Hey, good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions. First, I just want to talk about this expanding TAM that you've talked about with the dual-use capabilities and government contracts.

Do you see any scenario where you build and launch future BlockBird satellites with different payloads that might be exclusively for government customers or applications?

Abel Avellan

Hey, how are you? Listen, the satellites are really designed to manage all these applications in a single platform.

We do not need multiple satellites for multiple payloads. The core applications for our government contracts, for our partnership with the MNOs, are all possible through the same platform, which are in fact already being used in combination of the two.

We want to maximize and take advantage of a platform that can be used simultaneously for the two TAMs.

Griffin Boss

Got it. Understood, Abel.

Thanks for that. Then just second one for me, you always mention your thousands of patents and you talked about on this call, your expertise in building and deploying massive structures in low Earth orbit that could be used for myriad opportunities and you specifically call out these burgeoning opportunities in AI.

You call that out with the convertible raise, too. You have this one specific patent that's been of interest to us for a while for thermal management systems for structures in space, and that's a patent that describes a process for satellites wherein heat is dissipated locally at each antenna and heat could be directed to each antenna assembly during periods of extreme cold.

Just curious if you could maybe elaborate on that specifically as well as your other capabilities and how that could potentially be used for opportunities in data centers in space or why that makes AST satellites attractive for those types of capabilities?

Abel Avellan

No, absolutely. They are many key enablers that needed to be designed by us and deployed, patented, in order to solve probably the most difficult problem, which is connecting broadband regular handsets.

For that, we needed to develop and vertically integrate 95% of our technology, had the technology to produce at low cost power. That's a very significant of satellites our size.

We are on a factor of 10 lower per square meter power production of what historically manufacturers had been using. The size of the satellite and then the ability to generate power at a low cost per square meter, and then being able to dissipate and effectively run a lot of wattage per square meter within the power constraints of a space.

That's why we have built up a significant portfolio of IP. I think you hit it right.

That's a particular technology that enable a lot of things. Then when we talk about the ability to manage the spectrum using AI capabilities, we call it AI spectrum management.

The ability to use these satellites not only for communications, but other applications like radar. When you combine that with the ability to store, manage data in a way that uses the spectrum very, very efficiently, it opened a lot of other opportunities on the TAM that we have.

We believe the largest TAM is in broadband, true broadband, directly to the handset, where you will be basically becoming what I call the third leg of communications. You have Wi-Fi, you have cellular, and now you have space.

Our belief is to participate at scale in a way that is meaningful for our global operators, the broadband capability is essential. It's something that we have now.

That's what we have with the satellites that were deployed right now. We're extremely happy of the performance that we see on our BB6 in the new 2,400 square feet platform that we just launched.

Griffin Boss

Got it. Thanks for all the color, Abel.

I'll hand it off here and hop back in the queue. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Colin Canfield with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Please proceed with your question.

Colin Canfield

Hey, thank you for the question. As we parse out the comments that you talked about on 2028 revenue potential, just kind of thinking like the bull-bear of what you said, multiple versus $1 billion of potential in '27, which suggests, let's call it $1.5 to $3 billion for '28.

How does the team kind of think about the mix of opportunities between government and B2B customers? Then kind of within B2B, how do you think about tech discussions between communications, intelligence and on-orbit compute?

Thank you.

Scott Wisniewski

Thanks, Colin. I'll take that.

We put forward our expectations for revenue in 2026, building on the high end of our guidance that we achieved in 2025. Then we stated a goal for 2027.

We did not state anything for 2028. I'll keep my comments to 2027.

I think what we see is as we get this platform on a full-year run rate, and we're able to put the consumer business, the D2D communications business in place in some of the most favorable markets globally, and then you put that alongside our government applications, giving some time to mature and some potential contract wins we're chasing, that's how we get to that 2027 goal number. We think that that's probably more weighted towards commercial based on that framework.

Of course, upside, I think, if government does better. As you go out into 2028 and later in the decade, ultimately, we do think that our commercial business is going to be bigger.

That's always been the premise. Commercial, I think, at scale should be bigger than government.

We think that market's really attractive. We think all the demand drivers we've tracked for 7, 8 years of the company are intact and growing stronger by the day.

The government business is also very attractive. As we said, with all the various use cases we're tracking, there's potential for multiple billions of annual revenue through those use cases as well.

We see a really bright picture. I'd say it's largely consistent with how we've always seen it, although government's trended up over the last year or two.

That's how we see the mix playing out. I think that's, as we're deploying and as you saw we put out a number of customer announcements today, we see the strength of that demand as strong as ever.

Colin Canfield

Got it. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Then as we think of the progression of growth, is it fair to use the 4Q performance as a baseline for 2026 and then growing from there, or is the commentary in terms of growth for '26 more aligned with just growing from the 2025 annual number?

Scott Wisniewski

The way I'd think about it is, before we initiate commercial service here, we're doing revenue that's kind of earlier stage, right? The commercial revenue is not as consistent, and the government revenue is building nicely, but much lower than where it can be.

Quarter-to-quarter, I wouldn't say we're planning on building quarter-to-quarter. I think about it annually, like Andy put in his speech.

It's really about an annual target. I think at least doubling where we hit in 2025 is the right way to think about it, with, of course, upside as we launch commercial service.

Quarter-to-quarter, at least in the next few quarters before commercial service comes into play in the second half of 2026, that's how to think about it is we're putting commercial infrastructure in place, and we're performing against our government pipeline.

Colin Canfield

That's great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Kraft with Deutsche Bank.

Please proceed with your question.

Bryan Kraft

Hi, good afternoon. I'm just trying to understand the manufacturing side a little bit better.

Would you mind providing just some color on how many satellites beyond BB7 are built and ready to ship today, and maybe how many you expect to be built and ready to ship by mid-year? I know you talked about the microns, and those are the hardest part, but I think there is some assembly that takes some time beyond the microns themselves.

Then, just related to that, I think clearly the manufacturing pace is somewhat behind where you had expected it to be. Perhaps you could maybe just give us some appreciation for the kinds of things that maybe took longer than you had expected, and whether you think you've now worked through all those issues and are accelerating the pace up to where you had expected it to get to.

Thank you.

Abel Avellan

Yeah. I think we are at a point where you see that acceleration.

We certainly see that in the manufacturing of the key building block, which is the micron. Which we are on satellite 30.

We are on target to at least be ready to ship this year 60 satellites, with a minimum of 45 into orbit. We went through a phase, and just a year ago, the satellite were 3.5 times smaller.

They were already very big. They were the biggest ever launch.

These ones are 3.5 times bigger, and that's BB 6 and 7. Past that, basically, what is something that are helped us to accelerate our cadence of satellites in orbit is we are able to stack them.

That stack is difficult. You need to be able to stack either 3, 4, 6, or 8 satellites, and that is near completion.

That's where you'll see batches of six getting out of the factory very soon here.

Bryan Kraft

Okay. On the stacking, if I may, just in layman's terms, are you saying that there were specific engineering things that you had to figure out in order to get the stacking right, or are you just saying that getting that many done at once so that you could stack them and get it ready for a combined launch took some time?

Just if you don't mind clarifying.

Abel Avellan

Yeah. Getting them ready for a combined launch, you're talking about something like a five-story building worth of satellites, stacking them in either blocks of three of them, four, six, or eight.

That process is completed and the next batch of six, you see the pictures in the deck that we put in the IR deck. We pass that phase as we get ready to resume the shipments to the Cape.

Bryan Kraft

Okay. Thank you.

If I may sneak one more in, I know you said that BB7's expected to go up this month, and then launches every 1 to 2 months. Could we expect possibly a launch with multiple satellites in April, or is it likely to be 2 months post the March launch?

Abel Avellan

Yes. All further launches are in stack configuration.

We don't have anymore single launches like we did on BB6 and BB7. This next coming launch is super important for us as basically allows to reuse the first stage of the New Glenn, which is the only platform commercial that exists that can actually stack eight of our satellites.

There are other platforms that stack six or three, but with the New Glenn, we get the maximum amount of satellites per launch. That ability is becoming available with the new satellites.

Scott Wisniewski

Bryan, I'd just add, we expect to ship that next batch in April. Depending on timing and, of course, under ideal conditions, it's about 3 weeks or so to launch from there.

We're not going to speculate on launch timing for that, but we look like we're going to be in a position to ship those in April, and you can see that on page 10 in our deck.

Bryan Kraft

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Louie DiPalma with William Blair.

Please proceed with your question.

Louie DiPalma

Good evening, Abel, Scott, and Andy. Congrats on all the partnership announcements and the progress with your constellation.

First, I was wondering, are you in Barcelona for the conference, and will there be more announcements this week besides what you've already announced? Are you holding back certain announcements?

Scott Wisniewski

Hey, how you doing? It's Scott here.

We are in a conference room in Barcelona, it's great to do the call this quarter on the road. We had a flurry of announcements today, and, yeah, you can expect more for the rest of the week as well.

Louie DiPalma

Excellent. My second question is, what service level will your network support when you launch the different beta offerings in the summer?

Will there be different phases in terms of the service capabilities as more satellites come online, or the initial beta that launches, whenever that takes place, will that have close to a true 5G experience?

Abel Avellan

The way to think about this is peak data rate. What peak data rate you can expect on the phone will be directly proportional to the amount of spectrum that we get allocated.

With some partners, we have between our spectrum and their spectrum enough to around 100 MHz, and you can put a multiple of that number of megahertz to think about what is the peak data rate. Today, we're managing between 3 and 4 bits per hertz, the multiple is in that order.

The initial launch of commercial services is with the lower end of that, as the allocated spectrum it will be less. As we enable more spectrum, which the satellites support them now, they have great flexibility to keep adding the spectrum and keep adding and later even combining low-band spectrum with mid-band spectrum.

Then you see the peak data rates keep enhancing. That's the way to think about the key performance metrics as we launch services.

Louie DiPalma

Thanks. That makes sense, Abel.

One financial question, for the $1 billion revenue goal for 2027, how much of that is customer or subscriber usage-based versus being minimum revenue commitments that are contractually obligated with your MNO partners, such that if you actually are able to get between the 45 and 50 satellites online by the end of the year, how much of that $1 billion has been already in the bag, to speak?

Scott Wisniewski

Sure. Remember, we're at $1.2 billion contracted backlog right now, which we're very proud of and is a testament to how we built the ecosystem with our partners and how confident our partners are in the business that we're building, right?

That is still very, very low number compared to what our expectations are for the revenue potential of the business. While it's a good indicator, that backlog, which again is over $1.2 billion at this point, but in terms of its contribution to each individual year, it'll be a minority for sure.

In terms of a goal of $1 billion, you can think of that in the low hundreds of millions, somewhere in $100 to $300 million range depending on the year.

Louie DiPalma

Great. Thanks, Scott.

Thanks, everyone.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Schoell with UBS.

Please proceed with your question.

Chris Schoell

Great, thank you. Looking at your new disclosure, it appears your service's gross margins are around 90%.

Is this a good way to think about the business longer term, and as revenue generation starts to kick in, can you just remind us how you're thinking about operating leverage and where you believe steady-state EBITDA margins can reach for the business? Thank you.

Scott Wisniewski

We've been pretty consistent about this over time, and when you look at the history of the satellite industry when it's been performing well, has margins in the 80%-plus range. Even today, if you look across the market, there are businesses with 90%-plus flow-through margins in certain segments of their business, they just might not report it that way.

This has just tremendous operating leverage in it, and we've always known that off a fixed cost base. As we built the business, nothing's really changed.

We struggled to find true variable cost in a meaningful way. This is compounded by the fact that remember, our go-to-market strategy is with revenue share, so that is a big way that we even get greater leverage in the business and make it not just wholesale, but super wholesale.

At this point, our flow-through margins and our operating leverage, we think, over time could contribute to an EBITDA margin in the 90% area or higher.

Chris Schoell

Great, thank you. If I can just fit in one more, I recognize the 10-K talks about 90 satellites supporting your longer-term business goals, but does your ability to raise capital maybe incentivize you to perhaps go beyond what is contemplated in the original business plans?

Scott Wisniewski

I'll pass it over to Andy.

Andy Johnson

I think having that flexibility, the capital markets have been wonderful for us over the past year. That's absolutely the case.

The reality is when we get our constellation built, we're going to get leverage in the P&L to actually be cash flow positive from operations. We don't feel like at this point we need to look beyond what we've raised right now.

It provides us the flexibility to make additional investments, opportunistic and some of the other things that we're doing on our spectrum strategy. The real goal is to generate revenue and profit from the constellation as we get it launched.

That's kind of how we're thinking about it right now, but it's certainly nice to have the balance sheet fortified the way it is.

Chris Schoell

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Greg Pendy with Clear Street.

Please proceed with your question.

Greg Pendy

Hey guys, thanks for taking my question. Just a real quick one on the operating expenses that you outlined.

Could you just remind us what you said, and does that include what will likely be spectrum licensing fees, maybe around $20 million a quarter? Or spectrum lease payments?

Andy Johnson

This is Andy. It's a bit of a walk here.

You've got sort of the GAAP OpEx, which includes the normal non-cash items, which we adjust out, which we've talked about. Then from there, we also have the cost of revenues, which, when we get to service, we'll move into a more traditional COGS P&L that you'd be more used to there.

Then when you net that out, my commentary was that we were just slightly over where we were in Q3 of '25, and right in that guidance that I gave for Q4 in the mid-60s. It does not include spectrum costs, as you describe, for licensing, given that those are capitalized until we actually start monetizing that asset, and, of course, we're at the point where we're awaiting FCC approval.

We will speak to that as a specific item when it comes time to kind of build that into the operating expense. Right now, apples to apples, that's been out during the course of '25.

Greg Pendy

Very helpful. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you. We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session, and therefore, I will now turn the call back over to Scott Wisniewski for closing remarks.

Scott Wisniewski

Thank you, operator. We want to thank all of our shareholders and research analysts for joining the call.

We hope to see many of you down in Florida at our upcoming launch. Thank you.

Bye.

Operator

This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.