Earnings Labs

Gogo Inc. (GOGO)

Q3 2025 Earnings Call· Thu, Nov 6, 2025

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Hello, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Gogo Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to William Davis. You may begin.

William Davis

Analyst

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Gogo's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today to discuss our results are Chris Moore, CEO; and Zach Cotner, our 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 in a more fully detailed note under risk factors filed 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 November 6, 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'll 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 third quarter earnings release. This call is being webcasted and available at ir.gogoair.com. The earnings 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 Chris.

Christopher Moore

Analyst

Thank you, Will, and good morning. I will let Zach handle the numbers, but I am pleased with our financial discipline, integration and synergy execution and free cash flow generation as we prepare for growth as a result of our new product ramps and global contract wins. My remarks will focus on the significant progress made across our key new products in the third quarter, including 5G, HDX and FDX, all of which are expected to provide a step function increase in speed, consistency and performance. I will also discuss our progress in the military/government end market, including several recent contract wins that validate our unique multi-orbit multi-band strategy for this important customer base. We believe Gogo is well positioned to execute on our new product launches, and this bolsters my confidence in achieving long-term sustained revenue and free cash flow growth. Before we jump into our product rollouts, let's review the positive demand trends within our underpenetrated market. Global business jet flights are about 30% above pre-COVID levels, and at an all-time high. Fractional demand is robust. Overall demand for business jets remains healthy with major OEMs reporting strong backlogs and estimating 2025 final book-to-bill ratios 1x or higher. Last month, Honeywell estimated business jet deliveries globally of 8,500 over the next 10 years, representing an annual growth rate of approximately 3%. Given that our global addressable market of 41,000 business aircraft is less than 25% penetrated with broadband connectivity, these factors create a robust end market. In summary, our value creation is to grow our current strong position in the underpenetrated market with long-term high-margin customer relationships by delivering a set of new products and services, which deliver order of magnitude improvements in performance with purpose-built equipment that is easier to install, maintain and upgrade than competitors' products.…

Zachary Cotner

Analyst

Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. Third quarter revenue was in line with expectations, highlighted by strong equipment shipments. Also, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow were ahead of plan as our integration synergies and financial discipline continue to materialize. As a result, we are reiterating the high end of our 2025 financial guidance ranges for revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. As Chris mentioned, global demand for our new products continues to expand, and we believe this will ultimately lead to service revenue growth. As implied in our 2025 financial guidance, we expect to return to modest year-over-year revenue growth in Q4, while increases in Galileo and 5G investments as well as elevated inventory levels driven by our new product launches should decrease adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow sequentially. We are still completing our 2026 annual plan, and we'll be providing guidance on our Q4 call in February. However, in the meantime, we would like to provide a bit of context around next year. We see the potential for some incremental working capital need in '26 to support our new product ramps as well as continued ATG AOL volatility, particularly amongst our Classic fleet. Despite these considerations, we believe that new product growth, the roll-off of 5G and Galileo investments as well as further OpEx and CapEx rationalization will benefit us next year. I'll now provide an overview of our third quarter results, then I will turn to our capital allocation priorities and outlook for the balance sheet transactions to reduce interest expense and further de-lever. And finally, I will provide some additional color on the guidance. On a combined pro forma basis, Gogo's total revenue in the third quarter was $224 million, down 1% on a pro forma basis year-over-year as well as sequentially. On a…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line Scott Searle with ROTH Capital Partners.

Scott Searle

Analyst

Maybe just to dig in initially on the fourth quarter implied guidance. Chris, Zach, I'm wondering if you could dive in a little bit more in terms of detailing that outlook, it implies adjusted EBITDA in the $40 million range. You've mentioned incremental strategic investments and the ATG kind of roll-off. Could you take us through that a little bit more in detail in terms of the thought process and if you're being conservative on that front or ATG is expected to continue to transition, particularly on the Classic front? 

Zachary Cotner

Analyst

Thanks for the question. I think the way we're looking at it is, as you've seen, the ATG pressure continues, right? And that's the highest margin revenue, right? So, we anticipate a decline, albeit not as aggressive as the prior quarters, largely because the C1 should start they're shipping.  But the other piece is our revenue is actually going to be up, right? And another piece of that is equipment shipments. So, if you have lower margins on equipment shipments, so the mix changes. And as well as that, we have significant testing on 5G. So, there's a little bit of compression on gross margin because of the mix and then the OpEx side is going to be a little bit higher largely because of 5G testing. 

Christopher Moore

Analyst

Yes. I think also if you look at the record AVANCE shipments, C1s as Zach picked up, it's clear that customers are also planning to upgrade. I think the fact that we're rolling out the 5G network, and that's successful, I think that's also a very positive sign at this point in time. 

Scott Searle

Analyst

Got you. And for my follow-up, I'm wondering if we could dig in a little bit more in terms of existing Classic, the transition to C1 and kind of the offset there now that we're starting to see momentum on 5G and Galileo as we go into 2026. So could you help us frame in terms of Classic, how that's expected to roll over the next several quarters. Now with the C1 out there, you had a lot of momentum this quarter. Is the majority of that base expected to convert pretty quickly to C1? Or are some of those expected to upgrade to 5G as well? 

Christopher Moore

Analyst

I think it's a mix. If you look at the record AVANCE shipments, clearly, those customers are looking forward to 5G. It depends also on the customer budget. The C1 is really a placeholder product, but it's really encouraging that people are also taking that when you think it's just moving them on to a more modern network.  And our MRO partners putting in field service team. So, we expect that to pick up and derisk Classic customers not cutting over. Everything we see at the moment is extremely positive. So, we're feeling pretty good about it. 

Scott Searle

Analyst

Chris, if I could just add on to the back of that. From an ARPU standpoint, how do you see things trending as we go into the first half of next year? There's some downward pressure, I would imagine, as we're going to C1, but you're also having some of the higher ARPU services starting to kick in. So how do you see that playing out as we go into '26? 

Christopher Moore

Analyst

Yes. I think what's encouraging is if you look at 5G ARPU is worth twice that of a Classic customer. So that conversion, we actually see upside. And I think that's really where our heads are at the moment. Obviously, you've got more price-sensitive customers, but we've got a lot of price flexibility within the plans. So, people cutting over from over to C1. That's one aspect.  And then you've got people who I mean, we're going to be delivering a 50 to 80 megabit service on 5G. So that's I mean, that's completely and utterly a different service level than these customers have ever experienced. So, we see that as those customers really being a higher ARPU as they're streaming and being able to use video applications within the aircraft that they've never been able to do before. 

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Justin Lang with Morgan Stanley. 

Justin Lang

Analyst

I just want to double back on the implied 4Q EBITDA guide. Maybe you could just put a finer point on how much of the implied headwind is related to Galileo and 5G investments versus some of the ATG pressures you flagged? 

Zachary Cotner

Analyst

Yes. I would say it's kind of split a little bit evenly between ATG pressure as well as like increased OpEx. I would say there's a bigger piece of it related to 5G versus Galileo. There's still Galileo costs, but the STCs are running through and 5G, there's a lot of testing that has to go. We got to own aircraft right now. So that's a big driver. 

Justin Lang

Analyst

Okay. Got it. And then I know you've mentioned in the past sort of regular maintenance has been a big driver of some of the ATG AOL declines. Are you still seeing that trend? Or are you seeing heightened competitive pressure anywhere? 

Christopher Moore

Analyst

Not really seeing competitive pressure. I think one of the natures of the market is customers have scheduled maintenance for upgrades. So going to the C1, what I mentioned on the previous questions, really, it's that our MRO partners, I put field service teams. It's a very simple upgrade for C1, which we've designed.  So, we're doing a lot of those in the field. And there's been a lot of press about that with Omni, West Star, our MRO partners there. So, I think that will continue to have positive momentum for us. And we see that really encouraging. And I think you can see that with the C1 numbers are starting to really pick up now. So, but obviously, customers who are also waiting for scheduled maintenance, they'll wait until that point as well. It's just the nature of the market. 

Justin Lang

Analyst

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And then just really quick one on the shutdown. I know Zach you mentioned that it's not really impacting FCC reimbursement. But are you seeing any other impacts maybe around military/government or I'm not sure if there's any regulatory oversight outstanding for 5G flight testing, but are you seeing that creep up anywhere else? 

Christopher Moore

Analyst

Yes. I think you can definitely see things have slowed down a little bit with kind of like when you need government approvals in certain areas. But they're not it's not really affecting our business at this point in time. So, we're just keeping a close monitor to it, but we're not seeing major effects in our revenue outlook because of government shutdown. 

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] I'm showing no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call back over to William for closing remarks. 

William Davis

Analyst

Thank you for joining our third quarter earnings conference call. You may disconnect. 

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.