Critical Survey: AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) & The Competition

AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS – Get Rating) is one of 40 publicly-traded companies in the “Communication services, not elsewhere classified” industry, but how does it compare to its competitors? We will compare AST SpaceMobile to similar companies based on the strength of its institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, analyst recommendations, risk, dividends and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and price targets for AST SpaceMobile and its competitors, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AST SpaceMobile	0	0	2	0	3.00
AST SpaceMobile Competitors	245	693	746	36	2.33

AST SpaceMobile currently has a consensus target price of $30.00, indicating a potential upside of 309.28%. As a group, “Communication services, not elsewhere classified” companies have a potential upside of 52.19%. Given AST SpaceMobile’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe AST SpaceMobile is more favorable than its competitors.

Volatility and Risk

AST SpaceMobile has a beta of 0.63, meaning that its share price is 37% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AST SpaceMobile’s competitors have a beta of 1.40, meaning that their average share price is 40% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

24.8% of AST SpaceMobile shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 53.6% of shares of all “Communication services, not elsewhere classified” companies are held by institutional investors. 19.4% of shares of all “Communication services, not elsewhere classified” companies are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares AST SpaceMobile and its competitors revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
AST SpaceMobile	$12.40 million	-$18.97 million	-12.42
AST SpaceMobile Competitors	$3.40 billion	$368.64 million	1.62

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

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AST SpaceMobile	-214.60%	-20.08%	-15.34%
AST SpaceMobile Competitors	-91.76%	-63.80%	-12.73%

Summary

AST SpaceMobile competitors beat AST SpaceMobile on 9 of the 13 factors compared.

AST SpaceMobile Company Profile (Get Rating)

AST SpaceMobile, Inc. operates space-based cellular broadband network for mobile phones. Its SpaceMobile service provides mobile broadband services for users traveling in and out of areas without terrestrial mobile services on land, at sea, or in flight. The company is headquartered in Midland, Texas.

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