Key Takeaways
- AST SpaceMobile fell 10% today on a report that SpaceX is in talks to buy EchoStar’s Boost Mobile.
- Boost would let SpaceX sell phone service directly, against AT&T and Verizon, AST’s US carrier partners.
- AT&T and Verizon have more to lose than AST, whose bigger risk is its own launch pace.
AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) stock fell 10% today after The Washington Post reported that SpaceX (SPCX) is in talks to buy Boost Mobile from EchoStar (ECHO), or to use its network.
SpaceX rose 2% on the report. Neither company has confirmed a deal.
Boost would give Starlink a ground network to sell phone service straight to US subscribers, making SpaceX a head-on rival to AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ), AST’s US carrier partners.
SpaceX wants to be a carrier
On SpaceX’s Aug. 4 call, COO Gwynne Shotwell said she expects Starlink Mobile to “acquire quite a few” customers from the national carriers.
AST plans to earn its phone revenue through those carriers, and analysts expect it to take off once service starts:
The carriers have more to lose
Wireless made 96.9% of AT&T’s segment operating income in 2025. Boost runs partly on capacity leased from AT&T, which would be renting its network to a new rival. Verizon just posted 406,000 postpaid phone net adds, its best third quarter in five years.
So I’d expect both to lean harder on AST’s satellites. AT&T isn’t backing away: today, it and AST announced what they believe is “the industry’s first successful handoff” between a ground network and AST’s satellites. And Verizon has a $45 million contingent prepayment lined up for AST.
TIKR tracks 13 analysts on AST SpaceMobile. How many say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on AST SpaceMobile, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See AST SpaceMobile’s Analyst Ratings
Launch dates, please
AST’s forward price-to-sales multiple was 39x at Friday’s close, below its five-year average of 60x:
Today’s drop takes it lower, but that’s still a price for a fast ramp. AST has 12 BlueBirds in orbit, against the 45 to 60 it needs for continuous service, and it hasn’t launched since Aug. 5. And analysts expect free cash flow to stay deeply negative through 2028:
That works out to about $3.2 billion still to burn from July through 2028, against over $3.7 billion of pro forma cash at June 30. A thin cushion, with SpaceX moving this fast.
AST’s real risk is its own launch schedule, so I want firm dates for BlueBirds 14 to 16 in next week’s report. Of course, a signed SpaceX-EchoStar deal would give AST one more reason to hurry.
So what is AST SpaceMobile stock actually worth?
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