How Much Should This Fall Change Your View Of AST SpaceMobile Stock?

Shares of AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) fell 8.5% on Friday, October 16, 2026, compared with a 1.1% decline for the S&P 500. The company released no news of its own that day, and the stock closed at its lowest level of the past year. So how much is a buyer still paying for each dollar of AST SpaceMobile’s sales?

What A Buyer Pays For AST SpaceMobile Now

Investors are currently paying 105.5 times AST SpaceMobile’s sales for the twelve months to June 30. By contrast, the broader S&P 500 trades at 3.1 times. At the end of September, those same sales were priced at 152.7 times. The recent decline has made the stock cheaper against its sales, but it remains far from cheap.

Friday’s drop capped a difficult month. Shares have lost 35.2% since September 17, a period in which the S&P 500 gained 0.35%. Other satellite operators experienced milder declines on Friday. Viasat fell 4.3%, leaving AST SpaceMobile with a drop about twice as deep as that of the hardest-hit of those peers.

How Much AST SpaceMobile Plans To Sell

AST SpaceMobile plans to sell $150 million to $200 million in 2026. Management reiterated this full-year range on the company’s August 10 call. The business sold $115 million over the twelve months to June 30, and management noted that the June quarter’s sales came mainly from commercial gateway deliveries and U.S. government contract milestones.

With a market value of $12.16 billion, the stock price appears to assume far larger sales once commercial service begins. Management expects that launch in 2027 and has stated a goal to approach $1 billion of revenue in the first year of commercial service. Even at that level, today’s price would equal about 12 times sales.

During that same August 10 call, management put the revenue backlog at about $1.3 billion. This figure encompasses contracted revenue and agreements held with partners and the U.S. government. These are the goals and figures from the August 10 call, which is the latest the company has held.

AST SpaceMobile Is Still Losing Money

AST SpaceMobile lost $473 million at the operating level over the twelve months to June 30, and free cash flow was negative $1.74 billion. On the August 10 call, management guided to capital spending of about $350 million to $425 million in the third quarter of 2026 alone. That money is allocated for the BlueBird satellites, and management is targeting about 45 of them in orbit by early 2027.

The company held $2.29 billion in cash and short-term investments at June 30, measured against $2.99 billion of debt. In July, it raised an additional $1.15 billion by selling convertible notes due in 2034. The build-out is being paid for with borrowed money as well as cash on hand.

Friday’s fall changed the price of the shares, but it did not alter the underlying losses or the spending behind them. The last reported figures are still those from the end of June. Revenue against management’s full-year guide will be the figure to watch when AST SpaceMobile next reports, expected on or around November 9, 2026.

How To Act On ASTS?

Not necessarily on AST SpaceMobile alone, if your goal is long-term wealth. Wealth is built by owning the companies that keep outperforming, the leaders of their industries, wherever they are. Within the broader Communications Equipment industry, Applied Optoelectronics stock rose 947% and Lumentum stock rose 867% over the five years to October 2026, while AST SpaceMobile stock rose 298%.

Finding companies like these takes comparison across industries and sectors, and that is what the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio does. It holds 30 quality companies in equal weight and, since its inception in September 2020, has returned more than 105%, ahead of a benchmark that combines the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap and Russell 2000. See how we find the leaders.