Overview
- An SEC filing shows Rakuten sold about 4.5 million AST SpaceMobile shares for roughly $392.3 million and still holds a 5.3% stake, or about 15.5 million shares.
- Recent proxy disclosures tied $14.2 million of 2025 pay to performance goals and flagged a “satellites in orbit” target due by late February 2026 as “Not Achieved,” sharpening concerns about schedule slippage.
- The stock has whipsawed as traders weigh that governance signal against a key regulatory win that allows the company to deploy up to 248 satellites.
- AST SpaceMobile is set to report earnings, with analysts expecting a loss of 21 cents per share on $36.91 million in revenue after a prior-quarter revenue beat to $54.3 million.
- The company aims to link standard, unmodified phones to low Earth orbit “BlueBird” satellites, a model that could fill dead zones for mobile users once launches and network buildout stay on track.