Forget Starlink? Japan’s $1 Billion BlueBird Play Makes ASTS the National Satellite OS

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Forget Starlink? Japan’s Billion BlueBird Play Makes ASTS the National Satellite OS

ASTS
4755.T
SPCX

Quick Read

Japan’s ~$1 billion non-dilutive government award to the Rakuten-ASTS venture positions AST SpaceMobile as a replicable satellite OS for sovereign nations.
SpaceX beat revenue estimates but posted a $541 million net loss while Starlink ARPU fell from $85 to $66 even as subscribers doubled.
ASTS holds $3.7 billion in pro forma liquidity, 60-plus MNO partners covering 3 billion subscribers, and analyst consensus targets $79 versus a ~$62 close.
Just released. Our analysts combed the entire stock market and named the ten best stocks to buy right now, and AST SpaceMobile didn’t make the cut. Enter your email to see the names that beat ASTS. The report is free. Enter your email and see if any of your stocks made the cut.

Every retirement account in America seems to want a piece of SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX), the freshly public Starlink parent now carrying a $2 trillion market cap after a 36.65% one-month rip. But here’s what you should actually be watching.

Crowded, Unprofitable, and Priced for Perfection

SpaceX just posted $7.81B in Q2 2026 revenue and beat consensus by 14.59%, yet still reported an operating loss of $143M and a net loss of $541M. The Connectivity segment grew 66% year over year, but Starlink ARPU compressed from $85 to $66 even as subscribers doubled. That is classic late-cycle unit economics dressed up as growth.

Then there is the capital sinkhole. Capex hit $18.37B in a single quarter, with $15.83B directed at AI compute, and a $60B pending acquisition of Cursor is scheduled to close in Q3. One podcast host summed up the pivot bluntly, calling SpaceX “his AI holding company”. Retirement investors chasing a trillion-dollar rocket-and-GPU conglomerate through a post-IPO hype cycle are providing the exit liquidity.

The Sovereign Satellite Layer Nobody Is Pricing In

The smarter play sits at roughly $18.68 billion in market cap: AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS). While Starlink chases consumer broadband and Musk chases compute, ASTS is quietly becoming the operating system for direct-to-device cellular from space. Three points make the case.

Why Didn’t ASTS Make The Top 10 List?

24/7 Wall St has helped investors make money for over two decades, and our top analysts just finished ranking the definitive Top 10 Stocks To Buy Now. Not the ten biggest companies. Not the ten everyone is arguing about. The ten best stocks to buy right now.

And ASTS didn’t make the cut!

The report is free, and you can see why we think each stock is a top investment today.

Source: finance.yahoo.com