Press Release: Usa Navy Awards Comtech $50 Million Slm-5650 Billion Modem Contract

AST SpaceMobile, Inc. ASTS is scheduled to report third-quarter 2024 earnings on Nov. 14. For the third quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues is pegged at $2 million. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for third-quarter earnings is pegged at a loss of 18 cents per share, suggesting a narrower loss than a loss of 23 cents per share in the year-ago quarter. Earnings estimates for ASTS have remained unchanged at a loss of $1.03 per share for 2024 and a loss of 51 cents per share for 2025 over the past 60 days.

Find the latest EPS estimates and surprises on Zacks Earnings Calendar.

ASTS' Estimate Trend

Earnings Surprise History

The Texas-based organization delivered an earnings surprise of 26.32% in the last reported quarter. It delivered a four-quarter earnings surprise of negative 9.69%.

Earnings Whispers

Our proven model does not conclusively predict an earnings beat for ASTS for the third quarter. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy), or 3 (Hold) increases the chances of an earnings beat. This is not the case here. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

The company has an Earnings ESP of 0.00% and currently a Zacks Rank #3. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Factors Shaping Upcoming Results

During the quarter, ASTS announced the successful orbital launch of the first five commercial satellites, BlueBirds, from Florida. Equipped with the largest commercial communication arrays, the system effectively supports a capacity of up to 40 MHz, facilitating a peak data transmission speed of 120 Mbps. With more than 5,600 coverage cells in the United States, the company aims to provide non-continuous cellular broadband service across the country. The service is also available in some selected markets worldwide.

This marks a significant advancement toward the company’s vision of establishing a space-based cellular network, expanding connectivity to rural areas and eliminating the need for expensive terrestrial infrastructure.

Its commercial communication technologies are gaining healthy traction in the government sector for mission-critical applications. These factors will likely have a favorable impact on third-quarter earnings.

Price Performance

Over the past year, ASTS has gained 519% compared with the industry’s growth of 51.5%. It has also outperformed its peers, such as Aviat Networks, Inc. AVNW and Comtech Telecommunications Corp. CMTL over this period.

Comtech Telecommunications (CMTL) came out with a quarterly loss of $0.35 per share versus the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.05. This compares to earnings of $0.29 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of -800%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this communications company would post earnings of $0.08 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.20, delivering a surprise of 150%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates just once.

Comtech, which belongs to the Zacks Wireless Equipment industry, posted revenues of $126.19 million for the quarter ended July 2024, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.97%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $148.81 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates just once over the last four quarters.

The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call.

Comtech shares have lost about 54.1% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 21.9%.

What's Next for Comtech?

While Comtech has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock?

There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately.

Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions.

Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Comtech: favorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to outperform the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $0.04 on $140.7 million in revenues for the coming quarter and $0.55 on $601.67 million in revenues for the current fiscal year.

Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Wireless Equipment is currently in the bottom 37% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.

One other stock from the same industry, Clearfield (CLFD), is yet to report results for the quarter ended September 2024. The results are expected to be released on November 7.

This maker of fiber optic management products is expected to post quarterly loss of $0.19 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -211.8%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days.

Clearfield's revenues are expected to be $41.9 million, down 15.7% from the year-ago quarter.

Zacks Investment Research