TLDR
- ASTS stock jumped 11% after Berenberg Bank initiated coverage with a Buy rating and $92 price target
- The $92 target implies roughly 65% upside from the stock’s previous close
- Berenberg says AST is the only company to demonstrate true cellular broadband from space to unmodified smartphones
- AST has 60+ carrier partnerships covering approximately 3 billion potential subscribers
- AST pushed back its 45-satellite target from late 2026 to early 2027, which had weighed on the stock
AST SpaceMobile stock jumped 11% on Wednesday, closing at $62.40, after Berenberg Bank initiated coverage with a Buy rating and a $92 price target. That target implies roughly 65% upside from the stock’s previous close.
Berenberg analyst Michael Filatov was the driving force behind the call, kicking off coverage as part of a broader push into the space sector that also included Rocket Lab and Planet Labs.
The bank singled out AST as the only company to have demonstrated true cellular broadband connectivity from space directly to standard, unmodified smartphones. That distinction sits at the heart of Berenberg’s bull case.
The stock had already taken a beating before Wednesday’s pop. After hitting a record high of $133.09 on May 28, ASTS fell back to the low $60s, dragged down largely by slower-than-expected satellite deployment.
AST had originally targeted 45 to 60 satellites in orbit by end of 2026. After losing BlueBird 7 in April, it trimmed that to 45. Then during its Q2 earnings report in July, it pushed that target back to early 2027.
That delay stung, but the company isn’t exactly standing still.
What AST Has Going For It
AST currently has 13 BlueBird satellites launched, with 12 in orbit. It holds more than 60 mobile network operator partnerships, including AT&T and Verizon, and its $1.3 billion backlog gives some reassurance that commercial interest is real.
Berenberg expects meaningful commercial scaling to begin in 2027 once continuous service launches. The firm projects rapid revenue growth and high margins at that point, underpinned by AST’s owned spectrum assets in L-band and S-band, plus access to low-band spectrum.
The bank also noted that AST complements rather than competes with carriers like Vodafone and Rakuten, framing the company as a partner to mobile operators rather than a rival.
Analysts expect AST’s revenue to climb from $71 million in 2025 to $1.73 billion by 2028, with adjusted EBITDA turning positive in the final two years of that window.
Not Everyone Is Bullish
The analyst community isn’t all in. UBS maintained a Neutral rating on August 11 and lowered its forecast to $78. Piper Sandler kept an Overweight but cut its target to $98 on the same day.
Berenberg’s initiation was also framed against a broader space sector outlook. The firm says the global space economy surpassed $500 billion in 2025 and is projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2030, driven by falling launch costs and faster commercialization.
At an enterprise value of $21 billion, ASTS trades at roughly 33 times next year’s sales. It is not a cheap stock by any measure.
Berenberg described the risk-reward profile as asymmetric, pointing to multiple catalysts ahead as AST moves toward its 2027 commercial expansion.
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