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Gogo Inc. (GOGO)

Q4 2024 Earnings Call· Fri, Mar 14, 2025

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Q4 2024 Gogo Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Will Davis, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Will Davis

Analyst

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Gogo's fourth quarter of 2024 earnings conference call. Joining me today to talk about our results are Oakleigh Thorne, Executive Chairman of Gogo; Chris Moore, CEO; and Zac Cotner, CFO. Before we get started, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that during the course of this call, we may make forward-looking statements regarding future events and the future performance of the company. We caution you to consider the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements on this call. Those risk factors are described in our earnings release filed this morning and are more fully detailed under Risk Factors in our Annual Report on 10-K and 10-Q and other documents that we have filed with the SEC. In addition, please note that the date of this conference call is March 14, 2025. Any forward-looking statements that we make today are based on assumptions as of this date, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of more information or future events. During this call, we will present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. We have included a reconciliation and explanation of adjustments and other considerations of our non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures in our fourth quarter earnings release. This call is being broadcast on the Internet and available on the Investor Relations website at ir.gogoair.com. The earnings press release is also available on the website. After management comments, we'll host a Q&A session with the financial community only. It is now my great pleasure to turn the call over to Oakleigh.

Oakleigh Thorne

Analyst

Thanks, Will, and good morning, everyone. Let me start by extending a highly enthusiastic welcome to Chris and Zac. As many of you will remember, seven years ago, I came in from the Gogo Board to serve as CEO, on an emergency basis, and ever since then, we've been looking for the right successor. I believe we found that person in Chris. As our industry becomes more competitive and more centered in the fast changing world of satellite technology, Chris' deep Satcom and Aviation knowledge and his strong leadership skills are exactly what Gogo needs at this point in his value creation journey. So with that, I'd like to set a little historical context for where we are in that journey and set the stage for how combining with Satcom helps drive that journey. Then I'll turn it over to Chris to review our Q4 and 2024 business progress, to give an overview of our business strategy, to provide some insight on our MilGov business and to update everyone on our progress against our strategic initiatives. Then Zac will do the numbers. And finally, we'll move to our usual Q&A. I would like to start by reminding people that we operate in a market with lots of room to grow. In a world where demand for connectivity is surging due to video conferencing and cloud based applications, only 36% of the world's business jets boast broadband in flight connectivity, only 22%, if you include turboprops. And if you look outside The United States, there are 5,000 mid and small jets and 7,000 turboprops that literally have no access to an in-flight broadband solution today. Meanwhile, data usage per hour continues to surge. On Gogo planes continued in Q4, they grew 16% over prior year and on Satcom planes, they grew…

Chris Moore

Analyst

Thanks, Oak, and good morning. I'm happy to join you today as CEO of Gogo Inc. I've spent the last two decades in the global telecoms and IT business space, joining Satcom Direct in late 2012. In the years since, we have successfully expanded our global footprint to provide premium satellite connectivity solutions to aircraft across the global business aviation and military government sectors. Joining forces with Gogo is an incredibly exciting opportunity. Like so many in the industry, I have long admired the Gogo team, and I'm honored to lead it. As Oak noted, the synergy between the two companies is already evident, and I look forward to what we can achieve together for the benefits of our customers, partners, shareholders and team. Let's review our Q4 performance, which reflects the fundamental strengths of our business, driven by our strong market position as the only multi orbit connectivity company in Aviation, along with durable demand trends. On a standalone basis, Gogo met or exceeded its 2024 guidance on all metrics, excluding transaction expenses, and SD continued to show growth as demand for GEO solutions remains across the global business aviation and military government mobility markets. Zac will provide more detailed insights into our financial performance shortly, but I want to highlight some key areas of growth and success. Oak shared the news of receiving PMA, but there is other big news on the Galileo front as well. We have added another OEM selecting Galileo HDX as a line fit option for major small mid airframe, which we will announce later this year. This brings Galileo availability for customers, ordering new aircraft on four major OEMs in business aviation. We also received the first EASA STC with Airbus on their A319 platform. In a few minutes, when I get into…

Zac Cotner

Analyst

Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I'm excited to be leading the financial organization for the newly combined company and I'm pleased to share our financial performance and strategic business. By way of a quick background, I joined Satcom Direct as CFO in 2018 and previously held roles in private equity, investment banking as well as in international aerospace and defense business. I'm looking forward to continuing my journey with Gogo as it's a business my colleagues and I have, [Landon Meyer] (ph). Due to closing of our transaction and early months of our integration, the power of our combined organization is already apparent. In partnership with Oak and Chris, we are working to build a strong foundation with a focus on synergy extraction, operational execution, as well as EBITDA and free cash flow discipline. I look forward to engaging with all of you in the investment community and sharing our progress today and in the coming quarters. Before we get into the details, I want to clarify a few items related to our results. First, the Q4 and full year 2024 results include the impact of the Satcom Direct acquisition, which closed on December, 03, 2024. Therefore, our results include about a month of Satcom Direct results and in the case of our GAAP results, about $60 million transaction related payments incurred across both companies that impacted our free cash flow. Given the timing of the closing, our results reflect limited run rate synergies that we have achieved so far and expect to realize in 2025 and beyond. Second, the combined business demonstrated strong performance across the board in the fourth quarter. Standalone Gogo only revenue was in-line with 2024 guidance and standalone Gogo only cash flow and profitability metrics, excluding transaction expenses exceeded standalone Gogo's 2024 guidance. And…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Ric Prentiss from Raymond James and Associates.

Ric Prentiss

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning, everybody.

Oakleigh Thorne

Analyst

Good morning, Ric.

Ric Prentiss

Analyst

Good. Welcome, Chris and Zac. Good to chat with you guys. I want to start, Chris, since this is your first call out there. You touched on some of it, but clearly the elephant in the room is the competitive landscape. Walk us through kind of how you see the competitive landscape playing out in Gogo's position in particular.

Chris Moore

Analyst

Yes. Well, first of all, it's nice to speak to you, Ric. So, yes, when I look at it, I think we're in a really strong position and I think that really goes to the remarks we made around multi orbit capability. When I look at business aviation customers in particular, especially the high end ones with mid to long range aircraft, the fact that those aircraft fly globally and they fly into areas in the world that currently don't have LEO connectivity, Gogo can provide not only LEO but also GEO connectivity. For instance, we obviously do flight deck communications as well, and there were 400 flights last month inside of India that we tracked. And we can provide connectivity for all of those 400 flights with our GEO licensing within country. LEO currently isn't able to have communications within that territory because of regulatory. So really quite important to kind of clarify that need for multi-orbit with that mid-to-long range customer base. And it has a really good similarity as well with military government where they will not fly. They could kind of go to operations anywhere in the world. So therefore, having multi networks and multi capability is an essential need for not only the DoD, but overseas governments within Europe as well. So we see the competitive landscape. Obviously, with the launch of Galileo HDX, we're in a prime position to take on competition. We're actually the only competitor for Starlink. And the difference is we're not just selling one service. We have that multiple capability of selling multiple services to customers. So we actually believe that's really going to set us apart. And then also we have multiple opportunities for different revenue streams coming off the aircraft as well. Does that answer your question?

Ric Prentiss

Analyst

It does. And one of the things we've been hearing certainly in the last couple of months and certainly in the last couple of weeks has been, seems to be an international brewing pushback against Starlink. Any thoughts on what you're hearing out there in the global space?

Chris Moore

Analyst

Yes. I think it's kind of an interesting time at the moment for people. I think we're going to see more of a push towards kind of like how do sovereign based communication networks work and that need for differentiating services, I mentioned before, between LEO and GEO, I think that's going to play really well for Gogo. And the fact that we're regulatory compliant globally and we have differentiation of service, I think that's going to be really attractive to a lot of sovereign nations who are currently looking at mission critical infrastructure and also high net worth individuals as well. So I actually think kind of the opportunity for us is really great. So I'm really excited about the launch of HDX and to follow FDX. I think it's a really great time for our business.

Oakleigh Thorne

Analyst

I would just add one thing, Chris, which is the whole notion of being upgradable to new technologies. If you buy Starlink, you're stuck with Starlink. And today they serve their customers of the Ku network, for instance. Ka networks are going to come along, they're going to be much faster. They're not going to want to upgrade customers and customers are starting to get that, that they're kind of going to be trapped in the Starlink ecosystem if they don't go with us and into something that's highly flexible and upgradable. The other big thing, of course, Chris, also is support and Satcom Direct is famous for its levels of customer support. And that's something that people really value, spend $80 million on a jet, the last thing you want is not to be able to get somebody to answer the phone if you have an issue. So both Gogo and Starlink are very good at that. And as a result, they're very loyal customer bases. And so that's another big differentiation.

Chris Moore

Analyst

Yes, I think the big differentiation to us to any competitor is if something goes wrong in an aircraft, we can get somebody in under [24 hours to that] (ph) airplane anywhere in the world.

Ric Prentiss

Analyst

Great. That's good. And then one for Zac, nice to meet you as well. Clearly, a lot of work going on. You mentioned that you're still working on the long term modeling. What should we think? What is exactly that you need? When should we expect some more long term financial targets to be restored out there?

Zac Cotner

Analyst

Yes. So we're kind of trying to decide if we're going to do it on the Q1 call and or have like an Investor Day because there's a lot of moving pieces with this. We'll have it wrapped up in the next 4 to 6 weeks, and we're just trying to figure out the best way to disseminate that information. Obviously, there's a lot of moving pieces with kind of the geo market, the MilGov new to the combined business and there's a lot of variables that we want people to understand. So we'll keep you guys abreast of the plan, but it's all forthcoming.

Ric Prentiss

Analyst

Okay, great. And the last one for me is a lot of buzz on direct to device, right? So satellite connectivity to smartphones, a lot of different satellite companies playing in the space, carriers playing in the space. People get asked us the question then why couldn't people just use their smartphone in a plane if they are truly able to get not just emergency connectivity, but some of the operators and plans for direct to device or broadband? So maybe just a little touch on that. What does direct to device mean in the future here?

Chris Moore

Analyst

Yes. I think direct to device when we're looking at that with some of the announcements really kind of voice text capability, whereas really what's driving our mission if you look at it is true broadband capability within the aircraft. So therefore, things like video conferencing, the ability to be actually on your corporate network, full cyber security, it is a lot more advanced. So I think kind of if you look at that office in the sky concept, also from a military point of view, it's about mission critical communications. So it's really interesting technology, but obviously we've kind of over the years moved away from that kind of voice to text and really we're a true broadband capable business and driving broadband services across those connections. So we see kind of like the video conferencing, high resolution, streaming straight to the bulkhead monitors within the aircraft, HD capable systems, watching over the top applications like Netflix. That's really kind of the business aviation community and the government then has its own requirements as well.

Oakleigh Thorne

Analyst

There are accounts getting directed device through an airplane fuselage as well, which is not trivial.

Chris Moore

Analyst

Yes. And I think that's the other bit as well when you're flying at 500 miles an hour. Our kind of prospect on that, and I know you touched on the service and the quality as well, is making sure that you can fly anywhere in the world and you have for these type of customers have a consistent service globally. So it is interesting, but not really in our space.

Ric Prentiss

Analyst

Cool. Great. Thanks so much, guys.

Chris Moore

Analyst

Thank you. Thank you for your questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Simon Flannery from Morgan Stanley.

Simon Flannery

Analyst

Great. Thanks very much. Good morning and nice to connect as well. Best of luck with it. Just following up on Rick's questions. Could you talk a little bit more about FTX? Is that like six months behind HDX? When do you expect to see service revenues coming from that? And what's been the reception from investors? And then, Zac, just help us with the Satcom direct revenue model, if you could. I see $23.9 million revenues for the stub quarter. I see 1,249 aircraft. You didn't give us an ARPU. Presumably, there's other stuff in your satellite broadband revenues like MilGov and so forth. So is ARPU $10,000 a month? What's the trend in that ARPU? Any color if you have around how we think about that as we build our models going forward? Thank you.

Oakleigh Thorne

Analyst

Yes. Thanks, Simon. I'll handle the FDX question first. So, we're pretty excited. We've already got FDX antennas in our headquarters in Broomfield, working great. The big thing is making sure that the antennas are airworthy parts. We've learned a lot from the HDX PMA. So we're very confident we can launch that product in the summer and we'll then start developing STCs. A little bit of probably modest revenue before the end of the year, but that's really kind of we see the revenue on that kind of picking up in kind of Q1 2026. So super excited about that because that gives us --.

Simon Flannery

Analyst

That's equipment revenue, is it? Yes.

Oakleigh Thorne

Analyst

No, service revenue. And obviously, you need to sell the equipment anyway to get the service. So it would be a mixture of both. But that gives us then the full portfolio between HDX and FDX.

Zac Cotner

Analyst

Good morning. So regarding the revenue, I'll I get it's a little bit hard to follow because of the stub period and all that. But just to remind folks, it was December 3, right? So it wasn't a full month, almost a month. The full months are been trending in the low $40 million and that's on a combined basis, right? And then when you think about that $40 million about 20% has been MilGov, right? The rest is business aviation connectivity and piece of equipment, right? And we're not releasing ARPU yet for the GEO product, but I will say like the vast majority of that is our JX product, which is Inmarsat, right? And that's grown very nicely over the past few years. And we anticipate that to continue to grow modestly this year, but obviously, we will see some pressure on the ARPA, as well as the units online just because of natural attrition. But regarding the guidance, we think it's pretty reasonable. We try to be as mathematical and thoughtful about the degradation and the ARPU. So that's kind of high level the revenue model, if that's helpful.

Simon Flannery

Analyst

That's great. And back to Ric's question on competition. Are you seeing any changes in industry pricing in the last few months here?

Oakleigh Thorne

Analyst

No, no. Actually, it's not seeing any changes in pricing or additional pressures within the last few months.

Simon Flannery

Analyst

Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Louie DiPalma from William Blair.

Louie DiPalma

Analyst

Hey, Chris and Zac. Good morning and congrats on your new roles and also congrats on closing the Monumental merger.

Oakleigh Thorne

Analyst

Thanks, Louie.

Chris Moore

Analyst

Thanks, Louie.

Chris Moore

Analyst

For everyone, in the prepared remarks, you mentioned revenue sharing arrangements with your satellite operators and this seems to be a potentially new economic model. Could revenue sharing arrangements potentially enable you to maintain your margins with multi orbit offerings such that if you're putting both the OneWeb connectivity and the Inmarsat JX connectivity, the same aircraft? Can you potentially maintain the same margins? Thanks.

Oakleigh Thorne

Analyst

Yes. So that's a good question, Louis. So we've moved all kind of our main arrangements are all now with rev shares with the operators, which actually I think is mutually beneficial for them and for us because it's a high ARPA sector when you look at both business aviation and military. And then the opportunity with the multi-orbit really is with that -- there is a level of consistency across those revenue shares. They vary a little bit differently, but that enables us greater flexibility in service pricing and capability for the customer, which we're pretty excited about.

Louie DiPalma

Analyst

Great. And another one, following up on the competitive environment questions, are the expectations that Satcom Direct will continue to achieve positive net additions for the JX product in 2025? I think you reported strong net additions in the fourth quarter, but should that momentum continue in 2025 as Starlink has also continued to gain traction?

Zac Cotner

Analyst

Yes. Like we said, we think it will we're anticipating modest improvement, not the same kind of growth that we've seen in years past. And I think just a big driver of that to remind folks is the GX has historically not been Satcom Direct equipment. We've been the service provider, right, and that's line fit on a lot of aircraft, especially Gulfstream. So it's going to keep getting delivered, still getting turned on, just not as much not at the clip it was before. Because if you think about it, if you buy a new jet, typically you're not going to put it down and spend another $600,000 -- $700,000 to put a different antenna on. And like we said, we've seen the ARPA hold up pretty well. It's honestly held up better in the last 18 months than we've anticipated. And largely that's because the switching cost is a nuisance, right? And it's been working quite well.

Louie DiPalma

Analyst

Thanks, Zac. That makes sense. And my question was mostly focused on the service revenue and the net additions just because I don't think investors care as much about the equipment revenue because it's one time. And Gulfstream, I think two months ago, put out a press release regarding how they're going to promote like Starlink, like factory installations. So I was just wondering, has that impacted your backlog? And do you expect a continued positive net adds for GX? And it seems like you do.

Oakleigh Thorne

Analyst

Yes. I think to what Zach said, we put it down as like modest, but I think the benefit is with our GX services and also plain simple Ku within [Telsat] (ph) services, if I just particularly look at Gulfstream. But the GX services in some instances are type certified into the airframes on some airframes, which makes them particularly sticky. And then going back to that multi orbit position, Louie, if you're buying a G600 or a G700 or a G800, these are global mission aircraft. So having that need for multi orbit capability, we believe even if the customer is putting on a competitive product, we're still there as well because also remember we sell the cabin routing environment as well. So having that kind of seamless connectivity experience no matter where they fly globally is really important for those type of customers. And I think Gulfstream believes in that too.

Zac Cotner

Analyst

I mean, if you're spending $80 million on a jet and they say to you, okay, you want Starlink, do you still want the GEO? Starlink doesn't cover China, India, et cetera, has some other blank spots. Do you want continuous coverage or not? And most people say, especially corporations, yes, we do. And so they're going to want it as a backup. And for those people, more capacity is better and the more they can get, the better. So if you look at Starlink giving you 200 megabits per second more in a year or two, why not add it?

Louie DiPalma

Analyst

Yes. Excellent. Thanks. Thanks, Chris, Zac and Oak.

Zac Cotner

Analyst

Thanks Louie.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Sebastiano Petti from JPMorgan.

Sebastiano Petti

Analyst

Hi. Welcome, Chris and Zac. And, Oak, it's hard to believe it's been seven years. Just maybe some housekeeping questions perhaps. As we're thinking about 5G in fabrication now, I mean, are we out of the woods here given some of these slips that we saw in 2024? I mean, what is the confidence that maybe that product is indeed continues to progress from here as anticipated. I guess maybe how you're thinking about that and maybe the time-line and the next milestones there? And then maybe for Zac, the press release also talks about you're going to exceed the high end of the $25 million to $30 million range. You're going to be at $27 million exiting the first quarter. Help us obviously, we always as sell side owners would like more information. Help us maybe triangulate where are you in terms of what other cost initiatives may be coming out of that and how high could those synergies be and just maybe triangulate, are you just running ahead or is there more just latent opportunity there? And then lastly, just on the capital allocation, in the press release, you talked about evaluating return of capital to shareholders once leverage falls below 3.5%. But on the in your prepared remarks, I believe Zac as well, you also did talk about getting to your leverage range, I think, within the next twelve to twenty four months. So can you help us try to square those two? Even if you do go below 3.5% and you're not necessarily at your leverage range, the implication there that maybe at that point – you would evaluate shareholder returns at some capacity? Thank you.

Chris Moore

Analyst

All right. That's a lot of questions Sebastiano. So we'll start with the 5G. There was a bit of a slippage in GCT schedule, but they're still scheduled to come out of fabrication in the second quarter. And I would say that, that is the one critical item remaining in terms of getting the 5G product done. I mean, the network is built, all the equipments frankly already [SDC and PMA] (ph). There are planes flying with the equipment installed today. They will just need a box swap for a box that has a 5G chip instead of a 5G chip. So we're really pretty well primed to deliver and I think the only risk is around the bring up on the chip. This chip has been looked at so many ways by so many smart companies and people at this point that we feel like the risk of it failing on bring up is pretty low, but that risk is always obviously still there. So we can't I can't tell you that, that risk has gone to zero because it has not. I think the market, especially sort of light mid-sized jets that fly mostly in North America and are relatively more price sensitive than people who go for satellite, it's a big market and a big opportunity for us. We don't have a lot of competition in that space either. So we're still very optimistic about the prospects for that product. The next question is the $60 million net save. Zach, you want to jump on that?

Zac Cotner

Analyst

Yes. Just more the not only the $60 million net saves, but just the synergy run rate already being at the you're already almost at the high end here exiting the first quarter. You talked about that being a multiyear thing. And just trying to maybe size the savings there that's perhaps in the context of the $60 million but sorry about that.

Zac Cotner

Analyst

Yes. So I'll start with the synergy. So obviously, these companies were of a similar size, right? And as we all know, naturally, there's a lot of labor pieces to this just because of redundancies. So the positive thing is that the vast majority of the 75% have been labor related, right? So these aren't kind of pie in the sky sort of go get, so to speak. Chris and I have only been here for about three months, so we haven't been able to get into a lot of the other kind of operational type synergies, like software expenses for one. There's a lot of redundancies on those that we have to go through. In addition, I don't know if you publicly said it, but we're moving manufacturing from Canada down to Broomfield. So that should be an incremental savings. But I think the positive thing is we originally kind of talked about up to 24 months, but almost all of these will be executed this year, right? So we'll be in a good spot. But and I get it because you guys want to figure out how to model this, and that's what's tricky because there are offsetting costs, right, that we have to kind of think about. And so that's why when you see the flattish EBITDA, it's like where the synergy is going. And really, you have to think about we have a little bit of compression on the GX and GEO connectivity business as well as there's some compression on the ATG service margin and revenue. So a lot of this is kind of sucked up by some of the top line margin pressures. So I know that's a little bit hard to model, but like that's kind of the way you have to think about it is the service and equipment margins are kind of offsetting some of the synergies.

Sebastiano Petti

Analyst

That makes sense.

Zac Cotner

Analyst

Yes. And then on the capital allocation, I'll try to address that best we can. So obviously, this is a Board approved allocation. We haven't really refreshed it yet. I've worked in quite a few levered businesses and as CFO, my priority is really getting leverage down, interest rates down, especially just the return on capital, right, what's the best use of our cash. So we're going to explore that with the Board, kind of looking at the different return profiles of returning cash to shareholders versus sort of delevering initiatives over the next twelve months. We do believe that we'll be below the target leverage at year end, I think pretty conservatively. So I would just say stay tuned over the next quarter or two as we kind of refine the capital allocation strategy.

Oakleigh Thorne

Analyst

Just a little bit, Zac, to make sure credit goes where credit is due. I mean, today, totally achieved synergies of $27 million run rate have already been achieved. There's no debating that. Those changes have been made and the savings are real. There's more already in the works for later this year. And I think that Chris and Zach will continue to upgrade the Street on where those synergies are going. I would say that this is a highly organized effort. There's 36 value streams that are under analysis and teams that are working on taking the best of both companies and integrating them into single processes, there's going to be a lot of synergy realized in that. And I think that that will help you guys add over the years or two to that synergy achievement. So it's really been a great effort and a very highly organized effort. So congrats and hats off to you guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our last question comes from the line of Scott Searle from Roth Capital.

Scott Searle

Analyst

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Oak, Zac, Chris, congrats on getting the deal done. Zac and Chris, nice to meet you over the conference call here. Hey, maybe just to quickly dive in again on the 5G front. So kind of piggybacking on the last set of questions. Spent a lot of time at Mobile World Congress with different guys within the ecosystem and sounds like the silicon is increasingly confident that we're at that point. Could you just two things, take us through the timeline in terms of getting that to commercialization in your product from a firmware and a testing standpoint on your end? And then I'm kind of curious, we've had a lot of discussion today about multi orbit, but ATG seems like it's taken a smaller position in the dialogue today. How important is 5G to growth? Is ATG still a real growth category as you're looking out over the next several years given the penetration rates in North America?

Oakleigh Thorne

Analyst

Yes. So why don't I just kind of cover the multi orbit piece. When I talk about multi orbit, so obviously, it's a little bit of an interesting one with 5G is in obviously it's coming from the ground, but we see that as a key part of the multi orbit capability on the fact that not only could you be using satellite communications within North America, for instance, but you can also augment certain services over the 5G service and the fact that 5G is moving to a true broadband service. So we actually see obviously the kind of revenue for it probably is going to be a little bit less as a primary. However, it makes a really good backup service and also an alternative means service for people like the crew and allowing that capacity for a product like HDX or FDX to be a primary communications for the principal or the team in the back of the aircraft if it's a military aircraft. So we can actually start doing some really cool prioritization of service via our access or [SDR] (ph) range of routers as well. So we do see it as a primary product. And then if you go downstream into the small jet market, really does become very, very cost effective for aircraft not leaving North America. You then have a true broadband solution. And we've it's obviously the Gogo team has done a great job of making that very upgradable in the current air to ground ecosystem. So there's two aspects to this really. The small jet customers who we've got great enthusiasm from our MRO partners who are installing the hardware, still a lot of interest from those small jet customers. And then going into the mid large jet and military aircraft, there's a real high potential there of having this as a backup solution and an alternative means for communication. And it becomes really interesting as well with removing the Chinese equipment out of there from a cybersecurity [posture point] (ph) of view, which is something really serious. And the traditional SD business has already done very well on that because of our military government heritage as well. So we really do see a lot of future with the product. The way it's kind of adopted by customers might change a little bit, but it's a great pairing solution with our LEO strategy.

Chris Moore

Analyst

Yes. Then the 5G piece, I think, Scott, you're familiar with the when that chip is coming out of fabrication. Obviously, we have to it has to go through a series of testing. There's GCT and Samsung's testing and then it gets to Airspan and they do some testing and then we're trying to run as much in parallel as we can. But then there are certain things we have to test before we can start putting that in boxes and shipping it. So we expect that we will be getting that into boxes late Q3, shipping and starting to produce revenue in Q4. There are some people that will go to service revenue fairly quickly because they already have all they've got to do is swap an LX5 for an L5 with a 4G chip. That'll be relatively easy conversion for those that already are pre provisioned. So those people will get to service revenue relatively quickly. So I think you'll see sort of a mix of service and equipment revenue in Q4.

Scott Searle

Analyst

Great. Thank you. Very helpful. And then lastly, if I could just kind of wrap up on some housecleaning. I apologize I've been going in and out of coverage if this was covered. But can you calibrate us in terms of what non-GAAP OpEx is going to look like in the first quarter? And then as we get to the end of this year, it sounds like you're well ahead from a cost reduction standpoint. But there are some additional one-time costs in terms of being able to get the Galileo customers and channel up and running. Could you remind us then how much is going to come out of one-time costs in 2025 then as we go into 2026 to think about what that cost structure really looks like? And maybe one other calibration question on Satcom Direct. What is the growth rate been in the last couple of quarters, specifically in the fourth quarter in that core business? How has that been progressing? And maybe if you could just update us on the gross margin profile there? Thank you.

Zac Cotner

Analyst

Yes. We've got to break your question down a little bit, Scott. We're not we haven't provided specific guidance for Q1 and I don't think we will. So there's that piece. In terms of Satcom growth, fourth quarter over prior year, fourth quarter was strong. I don't know if you have it handy, but Yes, I mean, to get you from a legacy perspective, the business aviation growth has been growing at low double digits to mid double digits for the last five years. And that's largely because of that JX business. Like I said, I joined yes, FlexExec is another one we're doing with Intelsat. But I joined Satcom six years ago and we were consistently at 120 to 140 tails associated with JX and they're very sticky, right? As Chris mentioned, they're annual long term contracts and typically the net tail growth has increased every single year because like I mentioned, people don't want to put the aircraft down to kind of swap and it's worked reasonably well. I don't have quite the OpEx detail you're asking for, but what I will say is that the EBITDA guidance we've provided is pretty steady throughout the year. It's modest increases in Q3 and Q4. So it's not like a P&L hockey stick to hit this guidance. Obviously, some of the revenue is coming in Q3, Q4 with the once HDX starts generating revenue because these initial shipments are STCs and the catalyst program, so there's no real revenue associated with that. And then like I mentioned on the 5G front, it's minimal revenue because like you said, there's risk there, right? And we're trying not to be overly aggressive because we are dependent on other parties to get that done. And that's in Q4. And I think was there another question we had?

Chris Moore

Analyst

Well, I think there was a question around the shift from '25 to '26. The things that yes, sure. Things that come off our investments in 5G and GBB largely, also on a net basis, the FCC program improves in terms of cash flow. There's some Satcom product development that also matures in this year and will go down quite a bit next year. The catalyst program, which I noted was $25 million that will hit cash flow this year, will be largely behind us next year. Let's see, the cost achieved synergies would be largely behind us. We guided, I think, that was $13 million to $15 million something along those lines. I think about $13 million of that will be this year, so it'll be pretty minimal next year. And then we have you probably are familiar with our Airspan revolver. We think we may need we're counting on having to maybe lend them some money this year that would not repeat next year. So you get all that stuff comes off, then that gets offset by some additional product investment we're going to make in some other places, but it won't be anywhere near as large as what we've been doing. And that's how you kind of get to a net reduction of roughly $60 million which I alluded to in my script in terms of investment dollars, both CapEx and OpEx.

Scott Searle

Analyst

Great. Okay. Thanks so much, guys.

Oakleigh Thorne

Analyst

Yes. I really appreciate it. Nice to talk to you.

Operator

Operator

Thanks, Scott. Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back over to Oakleigh for closing remarks.

Oakleigh Thorne

Analyst

Thank you very much, everybody. This will actually be the last Gogo conference call that I lead, and I'm turning the con over to Chris who will be leading the next call. I just wanted to say a quick word to the sell side guys who have been following us for all these years and the investors have followed us. And it's been a real pleasure dealing with you all every quarter on these calls. And thank you for your smart questions and hard work on understanding Gogo and paying attention to our story. So thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.