Critical Survey: AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) and The Competition

AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS) is one of 203 publicly-traded companies in the “Diversified Telecommunication Services” industry, but how does it contrast to its peers? We will compare AST SpaceMobile to related companies based on the strength of its dividends, profitability, institutional ownership, risk, earnings, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for AST SpaceMobile and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AST SpaceMobile	2	6	6	0	2.29
AST SpaceMobile Competitors	1749	5336	7751	383	2.44

AST SpaceMobile presently has a consensus target price of $80.67, indicating a potential upside of 96.90%. As a group, “Diversified Telecommunication Services” companies have a potential upside of 20.48%. Given AST SpaceMobile’s higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe AST SpaceMobile is more favorable than its peers.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

61.0% of AST SpaceMobile shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 32.5% of shares of all “Diversified Telecommunication Services” companies are held by institutional investors. 20.9% of AST SpaceMobile shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 18.3% of shares of all “Diversified Telecommunication Services” companies are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility and Risk

AST SpaceMobile has a beta of 2.72, suggesting that its stock price is 172% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AST SpaceMobile’s peers have a beta of -4.77, suggesting that their average stock price is 577% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares AST SpaceMobile and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
AST SpaceMobile	$70.92 million	-$341.94 million	-19.14
AST SpaceMobile Competitors	$24.15 billion	$893.66 million	-166.20

AST SpaceMobile’s peers have higher revenue and earnings than AST SpaceMobile. AST SpaceMobile is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Profitability

This table compares AST SpaceMobile and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AST SpaceMobile	-536.66%	-22.88%	-10.67%
AST SpaceMobile Competitors	-11.92%	-217.42%	-3.37%

Summary

AST SpaceMobile peers beat AST SpaceMobile on 7 of the 13 factors compared.

About AST SpaceMobile

AST SpaceMobile, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops and provides access to a space-based cellular broadband network for smartphones in the United States. Its SpaceMobile service provides cellular broadband services to end-users who are out of terrestrial cellular coverage. The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Midland, Texas.