PL

Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ:SPCX), better known as SpaceX, a launch vehicles, spacecraft, and satellite broadband services provider, closed at $144.75, down 9.14%. Shares jumped 10% the previous day due to the company's third-quarter earnings strength, but gave way to profit-taking and a share unlock. Investors are watching Starship test progress and spectrum regulation for wireless networks next. Trading volume reached 193.8 million shares, coming in about 96% above its three-month average of 99.1 million shares. SpaceX IPO'd in 2026 and has fallen 10% since going public. The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) fell 1.22% to 7,663, while the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) dropped 2.60% to 26,009. Among aerospace and defense launch services, spacecraft manufacturing, and satellite broadband/connectivity peers, Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB) closed at $51.22, down 4.56%, and Planet Labs PBC (NYSE:PL) closed at $13.08, down 4.60%. Thursday's slide followed profit-taking and a share unlock of about 911.5 million insider shares becoming available for sale. SpaceX stock was also under pressure due to the company's Q3 capital expenditures, which soared to $19.6 billion compared to the prior year's $6.9 billion. The company announced Q3 results on Oct. 20, where it delivered an impressive 161% year-over-year sales increase to $14.6 billion. Part of that growth was due to its Super Intelligence division, which seeks to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom. This area generated Q3 revenue of $7.6 billion, up substantially from 2025's $813 million. Along with strong sales, SpaceX shares were galvanized by CEO Elon Musk suggesting the space-based company could merge with Tesla. On the company's earnings call, Musk stated, "Both SpaceX and Tesla have formed special committees to discuss this idea." This month, SpaceX caused telecom stocks to plunge after the company revealed a nationwide low-band spectrum deal with Grain Management. This is a major step toward SpaceX offering direct-to-device phone coverage across the U.S. Before you buy stock in Space Exploration Technologies, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Space Exploration Technologies wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $350,756!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,363,905!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 922% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 213% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of October 22, 2026. Robert Izquierdo has positions in Planet Labs PBC, Rocket Lab, Space Exploration Technologies, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Planet Labs PBC, Rocket Lab, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Stock Market Today, Oct. 22: SpaceX Earnings Beat Sparks Profit-Taking was originally published by The Motley Fool

Investing.com-- Global space technology stocks rose on Wednesday, tracking a premarket rally in SpaceX Corp (NASDAQ:SPCX) after the U.S. rocket firm clocked bumper third-quarter earnings. Still guessing which stocks will beat the market? Our AI portfolio updates monthly and is outperforming the S&P 500 by 118%. See this month's list » EchoStar jumped nearly 5% in premarket trading by 06:43 ET (10:43 GMT), while AST SpaceMobile and Rocket Lab gained more than 2% each. Intuitive Machines rose around 3%, while Planet Labs added 1.6%. In Europe, Eutelsat surged nearly 8%, and OHB SE jumped 6.9%. SES DRC added 2.2%. The moves followed gains in Asian space stocks, with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (TYO:7011) and Mitsubishi Electric Corp (TYO:6503), which are closely tied to Japan's space program, rising 1% and 1.9%, respectively, while rocket engine component maker IHI Corp. (TYO:7013) rose 1.3%. Satellite maker SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation (TYO:9412) rose 2.6%, while space tech startup Astroscale Holdings Inc (TYO:186A) jumped 5.7%. Japanese space stocks were also encouraged by the country launching a high-profile mission to a moon of Mars. In South Korea, Hanwha Aerospace Co Ltd (KS:012450) and Hanwha Systems Co Ltd (KS:272210) rose 1.9% and 5.2%, respectively. SpaceX supplier Shenzhen Sunway Communication (SZ:300136) rose 1.2%. Unsure what to buy ahead of earnings? Our AI's recent pre-earnings calls delivered gains of +77% to +118% after results dropped. See this month's earnings picks » The group tracked an aftermarket rally in SpaceX, with the rockets and artificial intelligence company adding nearly 10% after its third-quarter earnings handily beat estimates. SpaceX posted its first-ever quarterly profit as a public company. The print was fueled chiefly by SpaceX's AI and Starlink satellite communications unit. Starlink is by far SpaceX's biggest profit earner, with the rocket maker outlining plans to aggressively ramp up its U.S. and global satellite communications offerings. A rapid expansion in satellite demand bodes well for components and communication equipment makers such as SKY Perfect, China Satellite Communications, and Sunway. SpaceX's earnings also helped improve sentiment towards broader space stocks by showing how the sector's largest company could turn growth into profit. Following the report, Citi opened a 90-day positive catalyst watch on SpaceX shares, citing six factors: a track record of beats and raises expected to continue into the fourth quarter, Flight 15 as a potential major space-industry catalyst for reusability, dollar-per-watt economics trending above consensus, an accelerating Grok model release cadence, and possible year-end detail on SpaceX's power-generation and mobile strategies. "We've described Buy-rated SPCX as being in the midst of a catalyst-rich 2-3 year arc and we see the next 2-3 months in particular as uniquely catalyst rich even within that timeline that supports our positive investment thesis," Citi analysts said. Vahid Karaahmetovic contributed to this report. Original Article Global space stocks rally tracking blowout SpaceX Q3 earnings European shares rise on earnings support; Big Tech results awaited Global chip stocks rally as Super Micro forecast revives AI demand optimism

Image source: The Motley Fool. Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. ET Director of Investor Relations - Cleo Palmer-Poroner CEO, Chairperson and Co-Founder - William Marshall President and Chief Financial Officer - Ashley Whitfield Johnson Operator: Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Planet Labs PBC Second Quarter of Fiscal Year 2027 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Cleo Palmer-Poroner, Director of Investor Relations. Cleo Palmer-Poroner: Thanks, operator, and hello, everyone. I'm joined by Will Marshall and Ashley Johnson, who will provide a recap of our results and discuss our current outlook. We encourage everyone to please reference the earnings press release and earnings update presentation for today's call, which are available on our Investor Relations website. Before we begin, we'd like to remind everyone that we will make forward-looking statements related to future events or our financial outlook. Any forward-looking statements are based on management's current outlook, plans, estimates, expectations, and projections. The inclusion of such forward-looking information should not be regarded as a representation by Planet that future plans, estimates, or expectations will be achieved. Such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties and assumptions as detailed in our SEC filings, which can be found at www.sec.gov. Our actual results or performance may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements, and we undertake no responsibility to update such forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which the statement is made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. During the call, we will also discuss historic and forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures. We use these non-GAAP financial measures for financial and operational decision-making and as a means to evaluate period-to-period comparisons. We believe that these measures provide useful information about operating results, enhance the overall understanding of past financial performance and future prospects, and allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by management in its financial and operational decision-making. For more information on the non-GAAP financial measures, please see the reconciliation tables provided in our press release issued earlier today, which is available on our website at investors.planet.com. Further, throughout this call, we will provide a number of key performance indicators used by management and often used by competitors in our industry. These and other key performance indicators are discussed in more detail in our press release and our earnings update presentation, which are intended to accompany our prepared remarks. At this point, I'd now like to turn the call over to Will Marshall, Planet's CEO, Chairperson and Co-Founder. Over to you, Will. William Marshall: Thanks, Cleo, and welcome, everyone, joining us today. Planet had another outstanding quarter, delivering a record $116 million in revenue, representing approximately 58% year-over-year growth. Non-GAAP gross margin was 59% for the quarter, better than expected, demonstrating the ongoing scalability of our business model. For the fourth sequential quarter, we achieved and, in fact, well exceeded the Rule of 40, which is our revenue growth rate plus adjusted EBITDA margin. Our revenue growth rate was driven by strong execution across our satellite services deals as well as continued momentum in our Data and Solutions business. We completed commissioning and handed over the first sovereign Earth observation satellite for the Swedish Armed Forces and successfully launched our next-generation Pelican tech demo. And this week, we shipped our second Tanager and 18 SuperDove satellites for launch. Both at home and abroad, Planet's data, AI-enabled solutions, and sovereign satellite capabilities are proving critical to the challenges and opportunities governments and companies across all industries face every day, from disaster response to resource management to national security. Defense and Intelligence was once again an area of strength for us, with over 90% revenue growth year-on-year. I want to highlight 2 recent wins in this sector for our Data and Solutions business, both of which landed in August and therefore, are not included in our financial metrics for the quarter. We were awarded a new $8 million contract with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, NGA, to deploy Planet's Global Monitoring Service, GMS, in support of national defense priorities with options to expand and extend this work. Planet was the only vendor considered as our solutions are truly unique. We've created a deep archive of thousands of images for every point on Earth's landmass, enabling a peripheral vision, which with AI-powered pattern recognition on top, provides customers with the strategic indication and warning capability to proactively recognize patterns and identify emerging threats. This program grew out of a successful pilot with the Defense Innovation Unit in support of INDOPACOM, and we're incredibly proud to see GMS graduate to an operational program. We were also awarded a 7-figure 1-year agreement with a European defense and intelligence customer to supply high-resolution global Mosaics and support operational planning. Turning to satellite services. Our team's execution against our backlog for our satellite services customers contributed to the strength in our defense and intelligence results. As we discussed last quarter, in May, we launched our first satellite for the Swedish Armed Forces just 4 months after the satellite services contract with them was signed. The Space Systems team's rapid commissioning of that satellite enabled us to officially hand over to the customer, which contributed to the Q2 revenue outperformance. In August, the German government announced that we were awarded a tender for dedicated capacity satellite services. The tender award includes options and has a maximum possible value of EUR 25 million over 5 years. Overall, our satellite services pipeline progress has been extraordinary. In particular, we're very pleased with the maturation of this pipeline. Today, we have over $4 billion of identified opportunities for satellite services, over 25% of which is qualified as near-term pipeline. Planet is extremely differentiated here due to the strength of our operational history as we've launched more Earth imaging satellites than any other company on the globe and due to our speed of delivery. For our 2 most recent satellite services partnerships, we've delivered a first satellite in orbit within 2 and 4 months of the contract award, respectively, compared to many years for the space industry historically. We are also increasingly finding that our customers and prospects want both AI-enabled solutions and satellite services. This bundling creates synergies and is even more differentiated. Governments are articulating an urgent imperative to secure sovereign access to space, understand threats in and around their region, modernize their defense capabilities, prepare their infrastructure for natural disasters and other catastrophic events and maintain their strategic edge. More broadly across the civil government sector, second quarter revenue grew over 5% year-over-year, and we continue to see encouraging momentum both in the U.S. and abroad. To share some recent highlights, during the quarter, Planet signed a new contract with the Rwanda Space Agency to provide national high-resolution data and analytics for government ministries, departments and agencies as well as public universities. The satellite imagery data will be used in policy and decision support on agriculture, urban management, spatial planning, disaster response, amongst other applications. This deal marks Planet's first national program of its kind in Africa. Also in the quarter, Planet signed a renewal with the New Mexico State Land Office. Since 2019, this long-standing partnership has evolved into a sophisticated multiproduct strategy that enables that land office to monitor, protect and manage over 9 million acres of public trust land. Shifting to the commercial sector. Revenue grew over 15% year-on-year, reflecting the continued focus from our teams on landing and expanding in large opportunities and leveraging AI-enabled solutions. To highlight a few interesting use cases in the sector, last month, we signed a 6-figure expanded renewal with a hyperscaler AI developer for global monitoring of data centers and semiconductor manufacturing facility construction. Planet's Pelican high-resolution data is used to track construction milestones for those facilities, which are strong indicators of the supply chain health and computing capacity. We're currently seeing meaningful demand from our customers in the AI and financial services industries to use Planet's data to track the pace of infrastructure expansion across the AI value chain. Planet partnered with FarmQA to develop and commercialize AI-powered agronomic intelligence tools for enterprise agriculture. The first application of the collaboration is already in the field, an AI-driven sugar beet yield estimation model, currently being piloted with multiple sugar beet cooperatives during the 2026 growing season. Finally, Planet partnered with Braga Technologies to integrate Planet's high-frequency satellite data into their spatial intelligence platform, enabling automated change detection and near real-time analytics for natural resource management and civil government applications. Stepping back, AI is enabling us to move up the market into high-value, higher-growth segments. We believe we currently have under 5% market share of today's overall Earth observation market, which excludes satellite services. And with the innovations we are making across solutions, real-time insights and next-generation monitoring, we believe we are poised to rapidly expand our market share. Perhaps more importantly, we believe that AI is expanding the potential market for these capabilities by enabling users without geospatial expertise to leverage this critical data into their daily operations and expand to further applications and segments. Planet is uniquely positioned to capture this expansion as our daily scan mission is core to those expanded applications and most ready and relevant for AI utilization. Turning to technology and operational updates. In July, we successfully launched our next-generation Pelican tech demo, which included several technology advancements across payload, on-orbit compute and satellite-to-satellite communications. This satellite follows our path towards delivering 30-centimeter class resolution imagery. As a reminder, this satellite is a tech demo and is not expected to serve customers. Just this week, we shipped our second Tanager hyperspectral satellite to the launch site along with 18 SuperDoves. They're slated for launch this fall aboard SpaceX's Transporter-18 mission. We're very excited to be growing our fleet in support of our partner, Carbon Mapper, and doubling our capacity for methane and CO2 detections and enabling higher revisit rates. Overall, we're investing in launch, both to diversify our supply chain and in response to synergies with our key satellite services government partners. To that end, in July, we announced a launch partnership with Isar Aerospace. Under this agreement, Isar is scheduled to launch a Pelican next year, which we plan to build in our new German satellite manufacturing facility. With both the satellite and the Isar launch vehicle, Spectrum, being built in Germany, this would be a national first for the country, demonstrating the value of commercial space in rapid advancements in German sovereign space capabilities. Relatedly, I wanted to provide an update on the German manufacturing facility, which is expected to roughly double our manufacturing capacity. This project is progressing at pace with the facility setup and clean room fit-out scheduled for September and plans to begin building in the facility this year. There has been considerable interest from the German and European governments in this new facility, and we believe it positions us well to serve critical needs of customers and prospects in the region. Over the summer, we also opened a new office in London as we scale our European presence and establish a hub for our customers and partner relationships in the region. Finally, our AI app has progressed to the open beta phase. This pioneering tool is focused on making Planet's massive global data archive queryable through natural language. By leveraging Planet's proprietary 10-year archive of daily data and integrating LLMs, it can help lower the barriers of entry for nontechnical users across all markets, allowing teams without geospatial expertise to accelerate their adoption of Planet's products. Given our momentum with our AI-powered solutions, I wanted to take a moment to discuss our upcoming next-generation monitoring satellite, Owl, and our excitement over that program. We are already seeing significant traction with GMS and MDA among our most critical partners and customers and feedback indicates that Owl program will unlock massive value for them. They would like to see us accelerate that program, which we are beginning to do. This program will upgrade the data underpinning the solutions from 3-meter to 1-meter class resolution, enabling the detection of smaller objects such as smaller vehicles as well as reduce the latency to as little as an hour in key areas, enabling faster response. Owl represents, in that sense, a massive leap forward. To put it in perspective, it will deliver roughly 10x more data and do so about 10x faster. We expect Owl to reinforce our leadership position in broad area monitoring and analytics with greater resolution and lower latency, which puts us in a position to capture market share from the high-resolution market and power downstream solutions with higher fidelity insights. In closing then, our strong performance this quarter demonstrates clear execution across the business. We delivered robust revenue growth, disciplined execution and major strategic wins with our large government customers while growing our pipeline across all of our offerings. By expanding our international footprint, advancing our next-generation constellations and lowering technical barriers with AI, we are positioning Planet to capture a rapidly expanding Earth observation market and building a foundation for sustained long-term growth. With that, I'll turn it over to Ashley to discuss our financials. Over to you, Ash. Ashley Whitfield Johnson: Thanks, Will. It was indeed a strong quarter, supported by outstanding execution from our teams and exciting technology developments. Turning to our financial results. Revenue for the second quarter came in at a record $116 million, representing approximately 58% year-over-year growth. The outperformance in the quarter was driven primarily by delivering against our satellite services contracts, specifically with respect to the handover of our first Pelican for the Swedish Armed Forces. The Space Systems team did a fantastic job with rapid commissioning, exceeding our expectations, generating point-in-time revenue and contributing to the Q2 beat. We were pleased to see growth across all of our market sectors in the quarter. Our Defense and Intelligence revenue grew more than 90% year-on-year, which includes our satellite services revenue. The commercial sector was up more than 15% year-on-year and civil government revenue was up over 5%. Similarly, turning to our regional revenue breakdown, growth continues to be distributed around the globe. During the quarter, year-on-year revenue growth was approximately 3% in Latin America, over 15% in Asia Pacific, approximately 25% in North America and over 130% in EMEA. As our satellite services revenue grows, we will likely see an increase in revenue recognized as point-in-time versus over-time. In Q2, point-in-time revenue was 12% of revenue versus 1% in the same period last year. While we scale our satellite services business, we expect to experience variability in this metric quarter-to-quarter. Before I turn to ACV metrics, I want to remind you that our ACV metrics exclude satellite services, which for the purposes of our financial reporting, we define as sovereign satellite ownership, direct access services and managed operations. Our ACV metrics do include dedicated capacity contracts as customers are not taking ownership of the hardware and revenue for these services is recognized ratably. Recurring ACV was 98% of our end-of-period ACV book of business, reflecting our continued focus on selling subscription data contracts and solutions as opposed to onetime professional or engineering services. Approximately 94% of our end-of-period ACV book of business consists of annual or multiyear contracts. Net dollar retention rate on ACV at the end of the second quarter was 109% and net dollar retention rate with Winbacks was 110%. Our non-GAAP gross margin for the second quarter was 59% compared to 61% in the second quarter of fiscal '26, reflecting investments in support of our satellite services contracts and AI-enabled partner solutions. Our non-GAAP gross margins came in considerably better than expected, driven by the scalability of our business model and our revenue mix in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA profit was $13.9 million for the second quarter, better than expected, driven by higher gross margins and the revenue outperformance. Capital expenditures in Q2, which include capitalized software development, were approximately $29 million. This was just above our guidance range based on the timing of certain Pelican procurements and capitalized software development to support AI-powered solutions. As Will mentioned, given the strong demand we're seeing for our solutions and satellite services, we're investing behind our largest growth opportunities. We expect CapEx to increase in future quarters as we lean into market demand, scale up our manufacturing capacity in San Francisco and Berlin, invest in supply chain resiliency and build out our next-generation fleets. Year-to-date, we generated approximately $68 million in net cash from operating activities, while year-to-date free cash flow was $21 million. Year-to-date adjusted free cash flow was $29 million, which excludes nonrecurring payments related to litigation settlements. Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with approximately $865 million of cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, an increase of over 200% year-on-year, driven by our positive free cash flow and proceeds from our capital transactions over the last year. During Q2, we raised approximately $120 million from stock sales under our ATM program at an average net sales price of $31.96 per share after expenses. Given our strong balance sheet and cash flow positive operations, we remain focused on executing sales under the program in a disciplined manner, balancing market dynamics with our desire to minimize dilution as we add to our cash reserves. At the end of Q2, our remaining performance obligations, or RPOs, were approximately $753 million, up approximately 9% year-over-year, of which approximately 46% applied to the next 12 months and 68% to the next 24 months. We estimate our backlog, which includes contracts with the termination for convenience clause to be approximately $815 million, up approximately 11% year-over-year. Approximately 50% of our backlog applies to the next 12 months and 70% to the next 24 months. This implies that by executing on contracts already in our backlog, we could recognize over $400 million in revenue over the next 4 quarters, not including the impact of any new business or renewals closed during that period. This provides us with excellent visibility to near-term revenue and combined with the strength of our pipeline gives us confidence in our ability to sustain high growth rates in future years. Let me now turn to our guidance for the third quarter and full fiscal year 2027. In Q3, we're expecting revenue to be between $101 million and $105 million, which represents approximately 27% year-on-year growth at the midpoint, supported by strong visibility from our backlog. As a reminder, our strong Q2 revenue outperformance was due in part to the timing of the handover of our commissioned satellite in Q2 rather than Q3, shifting revenue between the 2 quarters without changing our full year outlook. We expect non-GAAP gross margin for the quarter to be between 56% and 58%. Q3 adjusted EBITDA loss is expected to be between minus $6 million and minus $1 million, reflecting our focus on investing to drive sustained growth. We are planning for capital expenditures of approximately $30 million to $37 million in the quarter, encompassing our facilities expansions and procurements for our next-generation fleets in response to the strong demand that Will alluded to in his remarks. For the full fiscal year 2027, we are increasing the low end of our guidance range to reflect our improved visibility as we continue to move through the year. We now forecast revenue between $430 million and $441 million, reflecting year-over-year growth of 40% to 43%. Our non-GAAP gross margin for the year is projected to be between 55% and 57%, above the high end of our prior expectations, driven by the mix of business and scale achieved from optimization of our infrastructure and in-house analytics. We anticipate margins to continue to expand in subsequent years as we scale the business and realize returns on our growth investments. We are similarly increasing the low end of our guidance range for adjusted EBITDA to reflect the improvement in margins with a current forecast between $3 million and $10 million, reflecting our resolve to drive adjusted EBITDA profitability on an annual basis as we capture market share through advancing our technology stack and expanding our global sales and marketing organization. We also aim to deliver Rule of 40 for this fiscal year, calculated as our revenue growth rate plus adjusted EBITDA margin. We are planning for approximately $100 million to $115 million in capital expenditures for the year, reflecting the necessary investments in our manufacturing facilities and next-generation satellites to meet surging market demand. CapEx can vary quarter-to-quarter based on the timing of our procurements, launches and real estate build-outs. We are managing the business to be adjusted free cash flow positive on an annual basis for the full fiscal year 2027, while we also focus on opportunities to accelerate growth. As a reminder, while free cash flow can vary quite significantly quarter-to-quarter based on the timing of cash collections and capital outlays for procurements, our focus remains on generating sustainable adjusted free cash flow on an annual basis through efficient growth in revenue across data solutions and satellite services. In closing, our Q2 results underscore the robust demand for our products and services. We remain focused on capturing share in a rapidly expanding market to drive top line growth while also delivering profitability on both an adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow basis. We have built a solid launching point to support our ambitious plans, underpinned by a strong balance sheet with over $850 million of cash and equivalents. We are well positioned to execute on our growth initiatives and deliver for our customers whose work is driving real-world security, economic and ecological value. As always, Will and I are awed by the achievements of our Global Planet team over an incredibly busy and exciting quarter and summer. Thank you all for all that you do. Operator, that concludes our comments. We can now take questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Edison Yu with Deutsche Bank. Xin Yu: First of all, I want to ask about AI and maybe try to tie in some of the broader dynamics going on. There's obviously been a lot of attention paid to the fact that the gap between frontier and open source open models has compressed a lot. Does this have any sort of impact on sort of your efforts? And if so, is that actually a positive tailwind for you? William Marshall: I thought very much about it in that way. But look, what we're taking is the best models across the field to apply on top of our data. It does help us, of course, the proliferation of that, more models, more availability and what we're trying to be is model agnostic on a lot of our applications. You heard about our AI app and that progressing to the open beta phase. And in that particular app, we allow people to choose their own models back end. So if you have a preference for Gemini over Anthropic or what have you, you can choose. It's a good point about smaller models. Obviously, I think that we're going to turn to a situation where the system will choose the model that's most appropriate for the question at some point. I'm sure that's where the big companies are going to go as well. But yes, I mean, in the sense that commoditization of those models only accentuates the extra value that we have of our data. And I often say to people, AI is all about the training data. Obviously, most generally to date, LLMs have trained off the text and other information on the Internet. That means they're largely blind to real-world information. And so if you're a farmer trying to understand your farm field or journalist trying to investigate a flood or someone in defense and security trying to investigate a threat around the horizon, you don't want a theoretical knowledge info about that. You want actual information around the corner. And that's where our data, our new daily scan with all of the archive really fits in well. So I think it just -- with the point you're making, only accentuates the value of extra data sets like ours. Xin Yu: Understood. Understood. And then -- yes, yes, totally. Separate question as a follow-up. You cited the pipeline at, I believe, $4 billion, and I think over 25% or $1 billion, I guess, is near term. Can you provide a little bit more context on how that number has been relative to in the past and also kind of the size of the deals maybe in the pipeline relative to -- in Germany? William Marshall: Yes, it's really great. Yes, we're very pleased with the German deal. That pipeline that you're talking about is referring to Constellation Services. So yes, we've got about $4 billion of deals identified in our pipeline there, about $1 billion of which we have designated as near-term pipeline. And yes, so we've seen both smaller deals when civil governments come in like this German civil, but it's really exciting that there are civil governments now taking interest in dedicated capacity options, in particular of our Constellation Services options. And I'm pleased to say we're also seeing even bigger deals at the big end of this spectrum. And some of that's contributing to the sheer scale of near-term opportunity pipeline there. So yes, I mean, I've never seen it as big as it is now. So it's maturing in all the way, but especially the maturation of the big deals is really impressive right now. So we're pleased on all fronts with Constellation Services. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of John Godyn with Citi. John Godyn: A number of companies out there planning to launch different types of large LEO constellations and the launch players would generally describe the market for their services as very tight. You mentioned a recent partnership in Germany as an example of just diversifying access to launch. I was hoping you could offer a bit of a temperature check on the market for launch services as you see it? And do you have any concerns about getting access at reasonable prices? William Marshall: Yes. I mean there is definitely a lot of demand for, especially for the rideshare missions with SpaceX right now, and that is driving some challenges for some of the players, especially the smaller players. You have to remember, of course, in the big arc, prices have been coming down. When we first started out at Planet, the launch prices were about $20,000 a kilogram. Now they're significantly less than that. They have been going up a little bit as we're dealing with that, and we've been investing to secure access. But I would also say that Planet's experience here is really critical. I mean we've launched 688 Earth imaging satellites on 42 rockets of 10 different varieties. So it's not just SpaceX, SpaceX 16 times, the Indian PSLV rocket 7 times, the Vega rocket, the H-II rocket, the Atlas rocket, there are many others. And so we're very experienced in putting our payloads up when we need. And we're very flexible and speedy. So all those providers really like working with us because of how experienced we are in doing that. So we always turn up with the payloads on time, integrate them quickly and so on. And so they love working with us. So we've got good plans. Of course, diversification is really great when new players, and we like investing contracts with new players because it helps encourage them to get going. They want to show they've got real opportunities to their investors to get going, and that's great. And it's synergistic with our satellite services with countries. I mean, in the case of that one with Isar Aerospace in Germany, yes, that's really great because, of course, Germany would love to see satellites built in Germany and launched on German rockets. So it just plays into that game. So we're an even stronger industrial player for that country in that example. And there's others around the world like that. John Godyn: That's great. And if I could just follow-up with a broadening up that question a bit to the supply chain at large, kind of same idea, a lot of activity, a lot of growth in expected satellite launches. Is there anything deeper in the supply chain that's showing up as kind of a problem, a concern, access to some sort of raw material or technology that's tightening up lead times? Anything like that, a temperature check would be great. William Marshall: Yes. No, we feel relatively good about our supply chains. We do think a lot about the supply chain risk, of course, and shoring that up, and we have made some investments to stockpile things that we really think are critical components. Most of that is relatively straightforward for us. I mean we're relatively small numbers still on most of the global scales. So Ashley, anything to add to that? Ashley Whitfield Johnson: No. I mean I obviously took up guidance on the year for CapEx, and part of that is we want to make sure that we don't run into any of those constraints. So we're looking at longer lead time items and making sure that we're making advanced procurements so that we can move at the pace of demand. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Mike Latimore with Northland Capital Markets. Mike Latimore: Great. On the queryable Earth offering, I guess you call it AI application, what -- when might we see this get to general availability? And then how are you thinking about monetizing it? William Marshall: Yes. Great questions. I mean, look, we're really pleased with how that, the interest of folks into that application, some of the emerging use cases that we're seeing really incredible. We're really still in a learning journey. It's a beta mode for a reason. We're learning what, and really trying to hone the app into what is valuable for customers. And then we'll think about the marketing and go-to-market pieces of it. So we're more focused on that value creation first. But the general way in which it's helping is it's enabling people to get going really quickly. Like what's the quick way of getting a rough idea? Does Planet have data that could be relevant for this? And what's the quick answer? And then the other piece of it is just lowering the barriers of entry for non-geospatial experts such that they can get going again without any such team in the loop. And that means also that it opens up to all those organizations that don't have geospatial teams at all. Now there's all sorts of caveats with it. We're learning. It's just early days. So, but I think Planet is in a unique position with one of the most fantastic data sets that could be combined with LLMs to make an incredible offering that is differentiated in the marketplace entirely. I mean, again, all those LLM companies are focused on building real-world models. And to do that, they need real-world data. And we have arguably the most incredible data set of real-world data to train up that. And so we're focusing on doing that ourselves. Mike Latimore: Yes, definitely great. And then on the pipeline, when you say 25% is near term, is near term like 12 months? And then also within that near-term bucket, any color on regions that are more prominent? William Marshall: Yes. What we mean by near term is quarters, not years. And what we mean by -- I mean, in terms of geography, I mean, at least 3 geographies of import, EMEA, APAC and North America are all playing significantly into our pipeline. And yes, I mean, we're very pleased to have about $1 billion in that near-term bucket. Mike Latimore: All right. And impressive Rule of 40 this quarter. William Marshall: Yes. Rule of 70. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Trevor Walsh with Citizens. Trevor Walsh: Will, I wanted to maybe start with you around a comment you made for that $8 million deal with NGA. I think you had said that Planet was the only provider kind of in the mix for that deal, which is impressive, not, I think, for any customer, but certainly for a U.S. government where that's not really the standard playbook. So I'm just maybe from like a broader competitive perspective, are you seeing that type of situation more where you guys are the only kind of game in town around certain deals or RFPs? And if so, kind of what do you think might be driving that? Is that the bread and butter kind of core ability of kind of PlanetScope or other newer type of capabilities? William Marshall: Well, yes, it's because of our daily scan. And we have seen it before. In the case of the U.S. Navy, that was also sole source awarded and, actually, they competed it the first time. But then once they realize what we had, they sole source it on the second time. So we have seen that on occasion. Obviously, governments do really prefer to have multiple vendors if they can. So this really means they've checked all the boxes and check that there's no other options. And yes, yes, exactly. Underlying that is our daily scan, which there is simply no one else does that. I mean you can look this up, anyone can look this up. No one has a sufficient number of Earth imaging satellites in the right kind of plane and all that to do a daily scan. And so if you want to monitor for new threats and monitor things consistently, we're the only game in town. Now that doesn't mean there's not other market opportunities for tasking and other things. Obviously, we're playing in that game as well. But in that particular area, which especially on the security front is about finding new threats, we're kind of the only game in town. Trevor Walsh: Got it. Helpful. Ashley, maybe for you, but Will also feel free to chime in. I think kind of as I just looked over the last few quarters, it looked like D&I is now, I think, at a higher watermark in terms of total revenue contribution in the quarter, 70% this Q. And then at the same time, international is kind of overtaking by a pretty good clip, the North America business. So just wondering how much of that is really just a function of Germany and JSAT flowing and maybe even the Swedish deal now flowing through the model, and that's just sort of a natural occurrence of those 2 metrics reaching those kind of higher contribution levels? Or if, or is that really more of like what the story of Planet is kind of in the future kind of going forward at least? Is it more of an international D&I-focused type of opportunity really that you guys are chasing ultimately? Ashley Whitfield Johnson: So you hit on it at the beginning of your question, as we are realizing backlog into revenue and delivering against our satellite services contracts, that hits primarily international as well as Defense and Intelligence. Now Will talked about the fact that we just signed our first civil government satellite services deal in August. And we do think that there is a meaningful opportunity for us in the civil government arena. And we also see a lot of opportunity for growth in civil government and commercial generally with the daily scan plus AI. I highlighted the fact that we're seeing a lot of interest in data center monitoring across insurance, the energy sector and financial services. I read a report recently that by 2030, the investment management sector alone is expected to be buying somewhere in the order of $23 billion worth of alternative data sets. And we think the type of data that we're providing fits really nicely into that type of space. So the net of that is there's a lot of opportunity for us to grow in commercial as well as in civil government and AI is really unlocking that by lowering the barrier to entry and not requiring GIS experts in order to derive value from the data. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Koontz with Needham & Co. Ryan Koontz: Great quarter. I actually, I wanted to ask kind of the dynamics that we're seeing in RPO here, just to simplify it for us here. We've seen a step down in total, but a real healthy step-up in current RPO. Is this primarily driven by kind of progress on the sat services deals, these big large deals you're just speaking about? Or are there other trends at play here in terms of shorter duration contracts outside of those? Ashley Whitfield Johnson: Yes, it's a really good question. Obviously, the current RPO and current backlog is directly attributable to the fact that we are making progress against some of these larger contracts. And as we continue to execute, we absolutely expect to translate that from backlog into revenue. And then just generally speaking, we've talked about the fact that we're exploring new markets. So those are going to be more short-term pilot deals and pilot opportunities. As we transition those into program of record, we would expect those to turn into longer-term deals. So I think there's a bit of some and some on that. But as Will said, there's also a lot of opportunity in our pipeline. And as we convert that, we'd certainly expect to continue to see backlog to grow. So it's going to be a little inconsistent quarter-to-quarter other than the fact that we absolutely are executing against the backlog and transitioning that into revenue. Ryan Koontz: Makes perfect sense. And another question on Maritime Domain Awareness. You guys have had a lot of success there. Are you seeing any changes in the competitive environment? I did see an announcement of one of your partners that's working with a competitor now. Anything you can share about the competitive environment in Maritime Domain? William Marshall: Yes. I mean there are a number of companies out there doing the, some of the analytics on top of data. But I mean, in terms of the core data set that it depends upon, again, we're the only one doing a daily scan. I mean, we image tens of millions of square kilometers of ocean territory. I mentioned the U.S. Navy partnership just in the last question. And that one alone images 13 million square kilometers of ocean territory. Just to give you a sense, that's far more area coverage than any other at least Western company doing Earth imaging, that alone. It's bigger than the United States area of ocean territory that they are looking at. And so no one else is doing that. And so yes, so the underlying data set is core to that application. So there's a number of players playing on the top of the analytics, like combining AIS data, SAR data, RF data, other sort of AI to predict ships and things like this, but they all need our data as far as I'm concerned. Operator: Your next question comes from the line Michael Filatov with Berenberg. Michael Filatov: So just 2 questions for me. The first one, there's a view out there that some customers might ideally want a single provider across multiple sensing modalities, so optical, SAR, RF, thermal, you name it, rather than integrating point solutions themselves. So you've got Tanager hyperspectral, but the core of the business remains optical. Can you talk about how you think about the idea of broadening the sensor portfolio? And if you agree with that idea, whether that's primarily an organic development path for Planet or whether M&A could play a role with the balance sheet you've got now? And then I'll follow-up with one more. William Marshall: Yes. I mean, look, I think electro-optic is the mainstay biggest piece of the market when you look at that, biggest area of applications, biggest market across all the segments. I think especially in civil government and commercial, it will be the biggest area of expansion as well. SAR is more expensive for sure. But there are synergies, to your point, in certain applications. Some of our customers have wanted both. I'll give you one example in NATO. That customer did want both SAR and optical. We integrated into a solution for them and others have done the same. And so -- and we're willing to work with others and partner on that front. And so we feel that we're in a good position. Again, daily scan is hard on SAR because you would need a lot and there's a lot of power considerations and much more power hungry. And so the base change detection system, we still think is the right thing to focus on optical first. So we think that's the core of the market. We're focused on that. We have partnerships and other things in the other areas. Michael Filatov: Sure. And just a follow-up. On the image archive as an AI asset, one thing I'd like to understand a bit better is data consistency across generations. I assume spectral calibration varies across Dove, SkySat, Pelican fleets and then archive spans multiple hardware iterations. So how much sort of normalization work is required before that data is genuinely training ready for a given commercial model or for your customers to utilize? William Marshall: Yes. Well, I mean, we essentially make our data backwards compatible. So as we enhance it, we always make it such that you can get the subset of the previous iteration with it. So Doves, for example, had 8 spectral bands, but they kept the 4 spectral bands of -- sorry, SuperDoves had 8 -- the Doves had 4, but they kept the same 4 and we do a lot of calibration work. All of these fleets are calibrated to Landsat, Sentinel, MODIS. These are government missions that have high calibration accuracy that we calibrate our data to. So such that people can be assured that when they get an analytic feed from us in the next generation, they always can continue that. By the way, that is a huge barrier to entry because this sort of calibration is really hard and there's a huge archive involved. I think people often underestimate the value of our archive, but it's central to all of their applications, GMS, for example, relies that work with NGA relies on years of data that looks back at the patterns of life over many years and then determines whether the new image tells you something changed that is significant. It's not just that it's changed, it's changed and it's significant. And that's because of the archive. And the AI applications is all about the archive. And MDA, you don't just want to know where a ship is now. You also want to know where did it come from. And so not only is our data unique in terms of the daily scan, it's unique because we have the archive. So even if someone had a daily scan suddenly today, they wouldn't have the archive to go back and find all these things for several years. So we've got quite a lead there. Ashley Whitfield Johnson: Yes. I think people often underestimate that exact point that you made, which is the calibration over time so that you have a very high signal-to-noise ratio. That has been a very significant investment that Planet has made over the years and makes the change detection analytics that we do on top of the data valuable to our customers. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Van Rhee with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Daniel Hibshman: This is Daniel on for Jeff. Maybe, Will, if we could just start on the pipeline, the $4 billion new sovereign deal pipeline number you gave, which is huge and real impressive. Maybe if you could just give us any other context you can around that in terms of how that's been trending quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year? Any call-outs on the composition of that? Any like concentration, geography, otherwise? Just any other context around that number, very interesting. William Marshall: Yes. I mean -- so it's been growing in number of deals, in total size. And I think the key thing we were trying to point out with the $1 billion part of it, the 25% of it, is maturation. I also mentioned earlier, we are getting both smaller deals and bigger deals into the pipe. So bigger than we had thought and smaller than we had thought. So that's quite interesting. It's spreading out a little bit, and it's transitioned officially from just defense into civil government. There's a few other deals like the German one that are in the mix as well, although it's still mainly Defense and Intelligence ones, which we always wanted, right? We want our solutions to transition to civil government and commercial, and we want our Constellation Services to transition. We often think of D&I as our forward-leaning partner. And so -- yes, we're very pleased with that momentum. And to geography, again, I said, there's 3 geos that are really driving that. And it's pretty strong in all 3 of those. I wouldn't say there's one like outstanding place amongst them. Daniel Hibshman: Helpful. And then Ashley, on the model, and I take it the Q3 sequential revenue decline that's guided, that's probably due to the step-up in onetimes in satellite services. So that makes sense. As we look to Q4, then what's implied for Q4, it looks like there's a real strong bounce back in the revenue. Just anything you wanted to call out there? Is that just sort of standard course deals are ramping over time? Or anything in particular to call out in terms of lumpy rev rec, any other rev rec events to call out in the balance of the year? Ashley Whitfield Johnson: Yes. No, I think you hit on it. Q2 was really about a step-up due to the point-in-time revenue. And I expect that as we continue to sign more satellite services deals that will both increase the variability in the short term, but over the long-term, probably normalize. In terms of the back half of this year, it's delivering against our backlog and really executing. And from -- from there, it will be landing and expanding with new business. So generally speaking, we feel very good about how the business is trending. William Marshall: And I also wanted to point out that you saw that the gross margin went up and it is sustaining up, and that's really great as well. Ashley Whitfield Johnson: Operator, any further questions? William Marshall: We lost the operator. Operator: Operator present. Our next question comes from the line of Noah Poponak with Goldman Sachs. Noah Poponak: Maybe just following up on that discussion there on the outlook for the rest of the year and the margins. The -- recognize you raised the EBITDA, but it implies lower margins in the back half versus the first half. Can you talk us through where in the cost structure that's happening, why that's happening and maybe how we should think about how that progresses into next year? Ashley Whitfield Johnson: So not a significant change in margins, but you're right to call out that it is a modest decline in gross margins. And that's simply just mix of business. So we are continuing to drive scale overall in the business. That's the strength to our one-to-many business model. But again, satellite services are going to be a different margin profile depending on where we are in delivery across those deals that will impact the mix of business. And so you'll see some variability quarter-to-quarter on gross margin. We were obviously really pleased this quarter to still deliver 59% non-GAAP gross margins even with a meaningful step-up in delivery against our backlog. Noah Poponak: Got it. Is there a way to think, Ashley, at this point about you had -- there was a long-term profitability framework provided in the company several years back, earlier days. Is there a way to think about the revenue base now after a lot of changes in the business and in strategy that's required to achieve that long-term profitability model? Ashley Whitfield Johnson: There's not necessarily a minimum revenue if that's effectively what you're asking. We talked through last fall when we had our Investor Day, those same long-term financial targets and kind of how we see them evolving over time. We still see this as a business that can deliver very healthy adjusted EBITDA profitability to 25% plus and with that healthy free cash flow dynamics. And gross margins, we amended that a bit to say north of 60% because it really is going to depend on that mix of business. But as we're demonstrating, even as we continue to fold more satellite services business into our revenue, we're maintaining high gross margins. So generally speaking, we are on track to continue to expand. And the main thing right now is we see so much market opportunity that we are leaning into that and investing across the board. Noah Poponak: Okay. That's great. And then just lastly for me on the CapEx increase. Could you just further detail a bit what's behind that? It's a pretty large increase and to kind of be happening in the middle of the year. What is that for? Ashley Whitfield Johnson: Yes. It's effectively -- see it as investments in Pelican and Owl. So as Will highlighted, it's strength of pipeline. We don't know ultimately how those deals will shake out in terms of dedicated capacity versus sovereign. So as we are stepping up investing and having that Pelican capacity, we operate under the assumption that those will be Planet satellites that could deliver dedicated capacity. Ultimately, if those turn into sovereign deals, those will flow differently through the P&L. But the long and the short of it is there's a lot of demand out there, and we want to make sure that we can continue to be the one that can deliver the fastest. So we're looking at long lead time items and making sure that we're in a good place on having the right inventory. Similarly, there is a lot of interest in Owl. So we announced this last year. We've been talking to our customers and understanding from them how 3-meter -- or 1-meter class imagery could really enhance that daily scan relative to 3-meter class imagery. And frankly, the question coming back to us is how quickly can you have this available. And so we're leaning into that and doing some advanced procurements to make sure that as we get those tech demos live, we can be also in parallel scaling up for having the full suite. So that's really the nature of the CapEx increases is just looking at that demand and deciding to pull forward some of those procurements. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley. Kyle Benvenuto: This is Kyle Benvenuto on for Kristine. Congrats on the quarter. One on the balance sheet for you. You raised $120 million through the ATM during the quarter and ended with roughly $865 million of cash and short-term investments while generating positive free cash flow. What changed in either the opportunity set or your investment requirements that made it attractive to increase the raise of equity here? And should we think of the capital as primarily supporting Owl and additional manufacturing capacity such as the CapEx increase you just discussed or for other strategic opportunities or simply just adding balance sheet flexibility? Ashley Whitfield Johnson: Yes, absolutely. I would really anchor it on the latter. It's that strategic balance sheet flexibility. Our target is on an annual basis to be free cash flow positive. So that means we're generating enough operating cash flow to support the CapEx investments in scaling up our next-generation fleet. So we are very diligent about how we are adding that capital to the balance sheet, making sure that we're sensitive to dilution as we know our shareholders are. But at the same time, we want to be in a position to make strategic moves that can accelerate our market capture and make sure that we can deliver for the broadest customer base possible. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Greg Pendy with Clear Street. Gregory Pendy: So you've talked about the Owl upgrade cycle. And I think, Will, you mentioned that it's 10x more data. I assume that going from 3 to 1 and then the 2D area scaling is how you're getting the 10x increase. But just how should we then translate that as analysts? I mean, does this mean that it's going to drive from a financial impact more usage? Or is it just -- is there a pricing increase opportunity? William Marshall: Yes, definitely a price increase opportunity. I mean this is considerably more information. And so it opens up more applications. Again, think of things like vehicles where a meter, you can start telling more about the type or even ID vehicles. I'll give you a specific example in Maritime Domain Awareness. We can typically ID the vessel if it's under -- if it's over 30 meters in size. At that point, we can actually say it's this vessel with this IMO number, which is really helpful. Smaller vessels we can see, but we can't ID them. If it's 1-meter, you would expect that roughly to divide in 3 so that you can see a 10-meter vessel. That's really important because there's a lot of fishing vessels and other things that are in that sort of 10- to 30-meter class. So it's things like that opens up more opportunities, different kinds of applications in that case, from military ships to maybe commercial ships and fishing vessels and things like that. So it opens up other applications. So definitely -- and we already have customers interested in that. And for sure, they're expecting the prices to go up. Ashley Whitfield Johnson: The other thing that Owl delivers, which Will highlighted is that it's 10x faster. So we're incorporating into the satellite things like AI capabilities being able to do that onboard detection and analysis as well as satellite to satellite communication, which can enable the data to get back to our customers faster. So it's on multiple vectors that this is much more valuable data to our customers. And so yes, we would certainly expect that to be commensurate in terms of the price we can charge. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Gabriel Flouret with Cantor Fitzgerald. Gabriel Flouret: This is Gabriel Flouret on for Colin. How does the team's balance of domestic opportunities range across the Pentagon's FY '26 budget, FY '27 CR and FY '27 request? To what extent can we see Planet programs to lift as program officers drive balance in commercial offerings? William Marshall: Well, great question. This administration is really leaning into commercial solutions. And one of the interesting pieces also, especially ones that -- where the company has already gone and invested and is building the system already, so the government gets to just benefit from that. And then they're really leaning in. So -- and we see it across the board. There's substantial programs that we have our eye on this year -- this coming year and the government FY '27. And that hasn't yet passed through Congress. So we're tracking all of that and how it results after reconciliation. But just know that there are meaningful expansion of commercial type operational budgets across the board, NGA, NRO for the intelligence community, the department itself. So it's getting a lot of budgets for new space capabilities. They're recognizing that space is a critical thing. That's because they're learning that. They're seeing what's happening in Ukraine. They're seeing what's happening in the Middle East, and they're learning that info -- satellites are key to information advantage, which is really critical in these places. So yes, a lot of interest across multiple years. I haven't got more specifics to give you on that or specific programs. A lot of that's very tight, but I assure you there's a lot of interest. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Chris Quilty with Quilty Space. Christopher Quilty: I had a follow-up on the Gen 2. You've had the first satellite on orbit for a couple of months. It doesn't look like it's been lowered yet. But when will you have a good idea of the performance characteristics of that satellite, which I believe this is the first one targeting the 30-centimeter class. And does that satellite have an optical crosslink for testing purposes? Or will that come on the next set of satellites? William Marshall: Yes, great question. So generally, that mission has been doing really well. So I'd say it's -- we have got the results from it, and that's what has enabled us to pave the path most importantly towards the 30-centimeter class imagery. So yes, I mean, roughly succeeded in all the major goals we set out for it. It was always set up as a tech demo mission. So it's all about the learnings as opposed to intending to be an operational satellite. But all the things we set out there for have been doing very well. It does have inter-satellite links, not optical, though, it's RF inter-satellite links. And so lower bandwidth, but very flexible. And so it can enable last-minute tasking as well as summary data to go back and even full images, but not that many of them. So it really gets us going in that field. We're making more advances there, including on the optical side in later missions coming down the pipe. So yes, I mean, very much did all the things that we were hoping and I'm very proud of the team. Christopher Quilty: Got you. And just specific on the optical, I mean, that's been the bane of every program out there, including SpaceX in the early days. I don't think you have announced a partner there. Is that an internal development effort? And how confident are you in that system working as designed? William Marshall: Very confident at this point. That is an internal project and deliberately so, several years of effort to bring that in-house because we wanted independent supply chain, and that's one of the key successes that we've made so that it's really very solid, and we will be adding optical crosslink's later as well on those missions. So that -- yes, having that main telescope system in-house has been a really important advancement. And yes, so it's a success, I would say. Operator: That's all the time we have for questions today. I will now turn the call back over to Will Marshall, CEO and Co-Founder, for closing remarks. William Marshall: Yes. I'd just say in closing that we feel it was a great quarter, meaningful beat on the top line and on margins. This is all made possible because of a series of new deals. I want to call out a couple of the first operational program for GMS with NGA, our first satellite services deal with a federal civil government agency with Germany, our first countrywide contract with the civil government in Africa with Rwanda. And we shared our first win with an AI hyperscaler for data center monitoring, which is also really cool. Each of these speaks to the value that Planet is bringing to customers around the globe. I couldn't be more pleased also for how our satellite services business is maturing, as we've discussed here, with over $4 billion of opportunities identified and over $1 billion as -- qualified as near-term pipeline. Stepping back, I believe today, we hold a small growing share of an enormous market. And furthermore, Planet's daily scan, along with our AI is opening entirely new applications and segments on top of that market. So Planet is uniquely positioned to go after these opportunities. On the satellite services side, our ability to deliver in months, not years, is a huge differentiation. And on the GMS side and MDA, it's all powered by a daily scan that no one else has, as we've also discussed on this call. So thanks always to the incredible hard work of the Planet team around the globe that enables this, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Operator: This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect. 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This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Planet Labs PBC. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Planet Labs (PL) Q2 2027 Earnings Call Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool

Planet Labs PBC PL used its second quarter of fiscal 2027 call to emphasize a maturing satellite-services pipeline, faster Owl development and manufacturing investment. Non-GAAP earnings of $0.02 per share topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a $0.02 loss, while revenue of $116.05 million exceeded the $105 million estimate. Planet Labs PBC price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Planet Labs PBC Quote Co-Founder, CEO and chair Will Marshall said Planet has more than $4 billion in satellite-services opportunities, with over 25% near term, which he defined as quarters rather than years. Will Marshall said the pipeline grew in deal count and size across EMEA, APAC and North America. A German civil-government tender carries a maximum €25 million value over five years, including options. President and CFO Ashley Johnson said the Swedish Armed Forces handover helped drive second-quarter outperformance. She said rising point-in-time satellite-services revenue can increase quarterly variability. Ashley Johnson said full-year revenue is expected at $430 million to $441 million after raising the low end. The range represents 40% to 43% growth, while non-GAAP gross margin is projected at 55% to 57%. Ashley Johnson raised the low end of adjusted EBITDA guidance to a $3 million to $10 million profit range. She maintained annual adjusted free cash flow positivity and Rule of 40 targets. For the third quarter, she guided to $101 million to $105 million of revenue, 56% to 58% non-GAAP gross margin and a $6 million to $1 million adjusted EBITDA loss. The Swedish handover shifted revenue from the third quarter into the second quarter without changing the full-year outlook. CEO and chair Will Marshall said customer feedback is prompting Planet to accelerate Owl. The system targets 1-meter-class imagery, roughly 10 times more data and latency as low as an hour in key areas. A Clear Street analyst asked about pricing. Will Marshall said improved resolution should support more applications and higher pricing. President and CFO Ashley Johnson emphasized faster delivery from onboard AI and satellite communications. A Deutsche Bank analyst asked about AI model commoditization, while a Northland Capital Markets analyst focused on monetization. Will Marshall said Planet is model agnostic and is refining its open-beta AI application before broader go-to-market decisions. President and CFO Ashley Johnson said fiscal 2027 capital expenditures are planned at $100 million to $115 million, with third-quarter spending of $30 million to $37 million. Spending covers Pelican, Owl, manufacturing and long-lead procurements. A Goldman Sachs analyst pressed the CapEx increase. Ashley Johnson said Planet is pulling forward purchases to preserve delivery speed and expects gross-margin variability from satellite-services mix. Ashley Johnson said RPOs were about $753 million and backlog about $815 million. About 50% applies to the next 12 months, and existing backlog could generate more than $400 million of revenue over the next four quarters. A Citizens analyst asked about the sole-source NGA award. CEO and Chair Will Marshall attributed it to Planet’s daily scan and said that differentiation had previously supported a sole-source U.S. Navy award. A Needham analyst asked about Maritime Domain Awareness competition. Will Marshall said analytics providers compete above the data layer, while Planet’s daily scan and historical archive remain central to change detection. A Citi analyst raised launch and supply-chain constraints. Will Marshall acknowledged a tight rideshare market and some launch-price increases but cited diversified launch experience and component stockpiling. Ashley Johnson highlighted advance procurement. Will Marshall’s closing message centered on faster satellite-services delivery, daily-scan differentiation and new government and commercial programs. Ashley Johnson kept annual adjusted EBITDA profitability and adjusted free cash flow positivity as guardrails while Planet increases investment. PL carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), a Value Score of F, Growth Score of B, Momentum Score of B and VGM Score of D. Growth and Momentum grades are stronger than the Value and VGM grades. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Zacks Style Scores complement the Zacks Rank. The strongest combinations pair Zacks Rank #1 or #2 (Buy) stocks with A or B Style Scores. PL’s Zacks Rank can change as estimate revisions incorporate the just-reported results. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Planet Labs PBC (PL) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here. Revenue growth of 58% year-over-year was primarily driven by strong execution in the Satellite Services business, including the rapid commissioning and handover of Sweden's first sovereign Earth observation satellite. The Defense and Intelligence sector grew over 90% year-on-year, anchored by the unique 'Global Monitoring Service' (GMS) which provides AI-powered pattern recognition across a 10-year imagery archive. Management attributes their competitive advantage to the 'daily scan' mission, stating they are the only provider capable of imaging the entire Earth's landmass daily, creating a unique dataset for AI training. The commercial sector grew 15% year-on-year, with emerging demand from hyperscaler AI developers using high-resolution data to monitor data center and semiconductor facility construction. Strategic expansion in Europe is being solidified through a new German manufacturing facility and a London office to serve increasing regional demand for sovereign space capabilities. Non-GAAP gross margins reached 59%, exceeding expectations due to the inherent scalability of the one-to-many data model and optimized infrastructure costs. Management identified a $4 billion pipeline for Satellite Services, with over $1 billion qualified as 'near-term' (expected to close in quarters, not years). Capital expenditure guidance was increased to $100 million - $115 million to accelerate the 'Owl' next-generation constellation, which aims to provide 1-meter resolution and 10x faster data delivery. The company is prioritizing 'strategic balance sheet flexibility' by maintaining over $850 million in cash to fund next-generation fleets and potential market capture opportunities. Guidance for fiscal year 2027 assumes the business will remain adjusted free cash flow positive on an annual basis while continuing to invest in manufacturing capacity in San Francisco and Berlin. The 'AI app' in open beta is expected to lower barriers to entry for non-geospatial experts by making the 10-year data archive queryable via natural language. Revenue mix is shifting toward more 'point-in-time' recognition (12% this quarter vs 1% last year) as Satellite Services contracts involve hardware handovers, introducing potential quarter-to-quarter variability. The company utilized its ATM program to raise $120 million in Q2, balancing the need for cash reserves against the desire to minimize shareholder dilution. Launch supply chain diversification is a key focus, evidenced by a new partnership with Isar Aerospace to launch satellites from Germany, mitigating reliance on any single provider. Management noted that while they are investing in Pelican and Owl constellations, the ultimate financial impact depends on whether customers choose 'dedicated capacity' (ratable revenue) or 'sovereign ownership' (point-in-time revenue). One stock. Nvidia-level potential. 30M+ investors trust Moby to find it first. Get the pick. Tap here. Management views the proliferation of open-source AI models as a tailwind that accentuates the value of their unique training data. They emphasized that while LLMs are trained on internet text, Planet's data provides the 'real-world' information necessary for practical applications in agriculture and defense. Will Marshall clarified that while many competitors offer analytics, they lack the underlying daily scan data required to monitor tens of millions of square kilometers of ocean. The archive allows customers to not only see where a ship is now but to track its historical path, a capability competitors cannot easily replicate. The increase is a direct response to 'surging market demand' and the need to secure long-lead time items for the next-generation fleets. Management is accelerating the Owl program specifically because customers requested 1-meter resolution to detect smaller objects like fishing vessels and individual vehicles. Management noted that being the 'only game in town' for certain NGA and Navy contracts is rare for the government but occurs because no other vendor provides a daily global scan. This differentiation allows Planet to bypass traditional competitive bidding in specific high-priority defense monitoring scenarios.

Planet Labs PBC (NYSE:PL), a daily satellite imagery and geospatial analytics provider, closed at $18.11, down 1.28%. Shares slipped after mixed premarket analyst updates, following Thursday's earnings beat and guidance raise. Trading volume reached 30.8M shares, coming in about 182% above its three-month average of 10.9M shares. Planet Labs PBC IPO'd in 2021 and has grown 83% since going public. The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) fell 0.39% to 7,718, and the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) slipped 0.29% to 26,507. Among aerospace & defense -- satellite-based earth observation and geospatial analytics peers, BlackSky Technology (NYSE:BKSY) closed at $20.50, down 0.63%, while Satellogic (NASDAQ:SATL) ended at $4.64, up 0.22%, underscoring a mixed session for the group. It was an excellent Q2 for Planet Labs as sales rose 58% and the company delivered a surprise positive adjusted EPS of $0.02 -- both above Wall Street's expectations. However, the stock slid 1% on mixed analyst price target changes and subsequent evaluations today. For the most part, Planet Labs' earnings looked strong, but its backlog growth of just 11% year over year may have helped keep the stock largely flat today. Furthermore, the company guided for Q3 sales to land between $101 million and $105 million -- well short of analysts' expectations of $114 million. While this would equal 27% sales growth at the midpoint, it'd be a large step back from Q2's outsize growth. I'm not racing out to buy shares of PL stock at 17 times sales. However, I believe the company could build a moat around its historical data and insights, especially as it continues to incorporate AI into its processes and looks for newer, leading-edge applications for its customers. Before you buy stock in Planet Labs PBC, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Planet Labs PBC wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut are built for long-term growth and could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $445,833!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,402,153!* That performance is why people listen. With a track record of beating the S&P 500 by nearly 5x, Stock Advisor offers a distinct advantage. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built for the long haul. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of September 4, 2026. Josh Kohn-Lindquist has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends BlackSky Technology and Planet Labs PBC. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Stock Market Today, Sept. 4: Planet Labs Dips 1% Despite Earnings Beat, Full-Year Guidance Raise was originally published by The Motley Fool

Wall Street expects an adjusted loss of $0.02 per share, according to Fiscal.ai. Planet Labs signed a seven-figure, one-year contract with a European defense and intelligence customer for its Planet Mosaics product. Berenberg recently said that it expects AI-based growth opportunities for Planet Labs. Shares of Planet Labs (PL) crashed more than 9% to their lowest level in over eight months on Thursday, as investors awaited the company’s second-quarter results later in the day. For its fiscal second quarter, Planet guided for revenue of $102 million to $107 million, compared with $73.4 million a year earlier. The company also expects a gross margin of 52% to 55% and adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) between break-even and $5 million. See what 10M+ investors are talking about. Get the Stocktwits Daily Rip for what retail is watching right now, free to your inbox Wall Street expects revenue of $104.22 million and an adjusted loss of $0.02 per share, according to Fiscal.ai, narrower than the $0.03 loss reported a year earlier. On Wednesday, Berenberg initiated coverage of the stock with a ‘Buy’ rating and $25 price target. Analyst Michael Filatov highlighted Planet’s ability to image the Earth’s landmass daily and its eight-year imagery archive, which would be difficult for competitors to recreate. Filatov also sees AI creating growth opportunities, both by using Planet’s real-world imagery to train models and by helping customers analyze its archive more efficiently. Planet has a 12-month consensus price target of $38.73, implying roughly 109% upside from the current level. Eight of the 12 analysts covering the stock have a ‘Buy’ rating, three have a ‘Hold’ rating, and one has a ‘Sell’ rating, according to Koyfin. On Thursday, Planet Labs announced a seven-figure, one-year agreement with a European defense and intelligence customer for its Planet Mosaics product and professional services. Planet Mosaics combines multiple satellite images into a single map. It recently signed a launch agreement with Isar Aerospace for its next-generation Pelican satellites and launched its first national program in Africa with the Rwandan government. The Rwanda program will use Planet’s satellite data for agriculture, forest monitoring, urban planning and disaster response. Despite the decline, retail sentiment for PL on Stocktwits remained ‘extremely bullish’ over the past 24 hours, amid ‘extremely high’ message volumes. One user expects the stock to crash to below $15 after the earnings. Another user expects the stock to “skyrocket” if the results are great. PL shares are down 7.4% so far in 2026. Also read: AVGO Stock Sinks To Near 5-Month Lows Despite Exploding AI Sales — Wall Street Reactions Are Mixed For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com. Arnab Paul has no position in any of the stocks mentioned in this article. StockTwits' news team content is for informational purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. For more, see our editorial policy. This article was originally published on StockTwits. Related: SoFi's Kraken Deal Grows Its Stablecoin Reach — Analyst Calls It 'Another Positive Development' But Still Sees 13% Downside SoFi's Kraken Deal Grows Its Stablecoin Reach — Analyst Calls It 'Another Positive Development' But Still Sees 13% Downside TSLA Stock Slips Overnight As Safety Regulator Scrutinizes Cybercab — Retail Fumes Over Event Blackout

Interested in Planet Labs PBC? Here are five stocks we like better. Record Q2 performance: Planet Labs reported $116 million in revenue, up approximately 58% year over year, with a 59% non-GAAP gross margin and profitable adjusted EBITDA. Defense and intelligence revenue rose more than 90%, led by satellite-services execution. Growing government opportunity: Remaining performance obligations reached approximately $753 million, while management identified more than $4 billion in satellite-services opportunities, with over 25% considered near-term. New awards included an $8 million NGA contract and a potential €25 million German defense deal. Higher outlook, heavier investment: Planet raised fiscal 2027 revenue guidance to $430 million–$441 million and adjusted EBITDA guidance to $3 million–$10 million, while planning $100 million–$115 million in capital expenditures for manufacturing expansion and next-generation Pelican and Owl satellite fleets. AST SpaceMobile Stock Soared 12%—This Was the Catalyst Planet Labs PBC (NYSE:PL) reported record second-quarter revenue of $116 million, up approximately 58% from a year earlier, as satellite services execution and demand from defense and intelligence customers drove growth. The company also raised the low end of its full-year fiscal 2027 outlook for revenue and adjusted EBITDA. Chief Executive Officer, Chairperson and Co-Founder Will Marshall said the company’s non-GAAP gross margin reached 59% during the quarter, exceeding expectations, while adjusted EBITDA was profitable. Planet also exceeded the “Rule of 40” metric for a fourth consecutive quarter, combining its revenue growth rate with adjusted EBITDA margin. → Boarding Call: EHang Secures First-Mover Altitude Could Falling Yields Make REIT Stocks Worth a Second Look? President and Chief Financial Officer Ashley Johnson said the company’s quarterly outperformance was primarily related to execution on satellite services contracts, including the handover of its first Pelican satellite for the Swedish Armed Forces. Planet launched the satellite in May, four months after signing the contract, and completed commissioning quickly enough for the handover to contribute point-in-time revenue in the second quarter. Defense and intelligence revenue increased more than 90% year over year, including satellite services revenue. Commercial-sector revenue rose more than 15%, while civil government revenue grew more than 5%. → Medtronic’s Stars Are Aligning for a Price Recovery Satellogic Is Tiny But Its Revenue Growth Is Hard to Ignore Regionally, Planet reported year-over-year revenue growth of approximately 3% in Latin America, more than 15% in Asia-Pacific, about 25% in North America and more than 130% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Johnson said the growth in international and defense revenue reflected the company’s delivery against satellite services backlog. Point-in-time revenue represented 12% of second-quarter revenue, compared with 1% in the prior-year period. Johnson said this measure may vary from quarter to quarter as the company expands satellite services, because certain contracts are recognized when delivery milestones are completed. → Dutch Bros Sell-Off Creates a Growth Opportunity Planet ended the quarter with approximately $753 million in remaining performance obligations, up about 9% year over year, and estimated backlog of roughly $815 million, up approximately 11%. About half of backlog applies to the next 12 months, according to the company. Planet announced an $8 million contract with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to deploy its Global Monitoring Service in support of national-defense priorities. Marshall said the award followed a Defense Innovation Unit pilot supporting INDOPACOM and includes options to expand and extend the work. The company also received a seven-figure, one-year agreement with a European defense and intelligence customer for high-resolution global mosaics and operational-planning support. In August, the German government announced a tender award for dedicated-capacity satellite services with a maximum possible value of €25 million over five years, including options. Marshall said Planet has identified more than $4 billion of satellite-services opportunities, with more than 25% classified as near-term pipeline. In response to analyst questions, he defined near term as “quarters, not years,” and said the opportunity set spans EMEA, Asia-Pacific and North America. He also said the pipeline includes both smaller civil-government opportunities and larger transactions. Outside defense, Planet signed a contract with the Rwanda Space Agency to provide national high-resolution data and analytics for government entities and public universities. The data will support applications including agriculture, urban management, spatial planning and disaster response. Marshall called it Planet’s first national program of its kind in Africa. In the commercial market, Planet cited an expanded six-figure renewal with a hyperscale AI developer that uses Planet’s Pelican imagery to monitor construction of data centers and semiconductor manufacturing facilities. The company also detailed partnerships with FarmQA on AI-powered agricultural intelligence tools and Bragger Technologies on change detection and natural-resource management analytics. Marshall said Planet’s AI application has progressed to open beta. The tool is designed to make the company’s archive of daily Earth imagery searchable using natural-language queries. He said the company is focused on learning from users before determining the product’s broader commercialization and go-to-market strategy. Management emphasized the strategic value of Planet’s archive and daily imaging coverage. Marshall said the company’s Global Monitoring Service and maritime-domain-awareness capabilities rely on historical data to identify meaningful changes and patterns over time. Planet launched a next-generation Pelican technology demonstration satellite in July. Marshall said the satellite met its major goals and supports the company’s path toward 30-centimeter-class imagery, though it is not intended to serve customers. The company also shipped its second Tanager hyperspectral satellite and 18 SuperDove satellites for a planned fall launch on SpaceX’s Transporter-18 mission. The company is accelerating development of its planned Owl next-generation monitoring system, which is intended to improve imagery resolution from 3-meter to 1-meter class and reduce latency to as little as one hour in key areas. Marshall said the system is expected to deliver roughly 10 times more data about 10 times faster, potentially enabling higher-priced applications. Planet is expanding manufacturing capacity in San Francisco and Berlin. Its German facility is expected to roughly double manufacturing capacity, with clean-room fit-out planned for September and initial production expected this year. The company also announced a launch partnership with Isar Aerospace for a Pelican mission planned next year. For the third quarter, Planet forecast revenue of $101 million to $105 million, representing approximately 27% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. The company expects non-GAAP gross margin of 56% to 58% and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $6 million to $1 million. For fiscal 2027, Planet raised its revenue outlook to $430 million to $441 million, implying growth of 40% to 43%. It projected non-GAAP gross margin of 55% to 57% and adjusted EBITDA of $3 million to $10 million. Capital expenditures are expected to total approximately $100 million to $115 million for the year, reflecting investments in manufacturing facilities, supply-chain resiliency and next-generation Pelican and Owl fleets. Johnson said the company is making advanced purchases of longer-lead-time items in response to demand and to maintain its ability to deliver satellites quickly. Planet generated approximately $68 million in net cash from operating activities year to date and ended the quarter with about $865 million of cash equivalents and short-term investments. During the quarter, the company raised approximately $120 million through stock sales under its at-the-market program. Johnson said the capital was intended primarily to provide strategic balance-sheet flexibility while management seeks to minimize dilution. Planet Labs PBC is a public benefit corporation that operates one of the largest fleets of Earth-imaging satellites, providing high-frequency, high-resolution imagery and data analytics to a broad range of industries. The company's multi-spectral satellite constellation captures daily snapshots of the planet, enabling clients to monitor changes in agriculture, forestry, urban development, energy infrastructure and environmental conditions. Planet's imagery platform is designed to support timely decision-making by transforming raw satellite data into actionable insights for business and government users. Founded in 2010 by former NASA scientists Will Marshall, Robbie Schingler and Chris Boshuizen, Planet Labs grew from a small startup into a key provider in the satellite imaging sector. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "Planet Labs PBC Q2 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for September 2026.

Planet Labs’ Q2 revenue surged 58% year-over-year to $116.1 million, topping the $104.22 million consensus estimate. The company posted adjusted EPS of $0.02, beating the analyst estimate of a loss of $0.02. Stocktwits retail sentiment remained “extremely bullish” as traders highlighted the double beat and strong backlog despite a softer Q3 outlook. Planet Labs (PL) reported strong second-quarter results on Thursday after the market close, with revenue and earnings beating Wall Street estimates. PL shares gained more than 8% after-hours at the time of writing, while Stocktwits retail sentiment was ‘extremely bullish’ following the company’s double beat. See what 10M+ investors are talking about. Get the Stocktwits Daily Rip for what retail is watching right now, free to your inbox Planet Labs’ second-quarter revenue increased 58% year-over-year to $116.1 million, topping the consensus estimate of $104.22 million, according to Fiscal.ai. The company reported second-quarter adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.02, which was above the analyst estimate of a loss of $0.02. Second-quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) were $13.9 million, compared with $6.4 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2026. Planet Labs ended the quarter with around $753.1 million in remaining performance obligations (RPOs), of which 46% apply to the next 12 months. Second-quarter backlog stood at $814.9 million, with 50% applying to the next 12 months. “Planet delivered an outstanding second quarter, with record revenue of $116.1 million, representing 58% year-over-year growth and our fourth consecutive quarter of meeting or exceeding the Rule of 40,” said Will Marshall, Planet’s co-founder, CEO and chairperson. Despite the strong second-quarter results, Planet Labs’ third-quarter revenue guidance came in below the analyst consensus. For the third quarter of fiscal 2027, ending October 31, 2026, the company expects revenue of $101 million to $105 million, below Wall Street’s $114.49 million consensus estimate, according to Fiscal.ai. Planet Labs expects an adjusted EBITDA loss of around $6 million to $1 million for the quarter. Capital expenditures are expected to be about $30 million to $37 million. For the full fiscal year 2027, Planet Labs expects revenue of $430 million to $441 million, compared with the consensus estimate of $435.91 million. The company expects adjusted EBITDA profit of $3 million to $10 million, while capital expenditures are expected to be between $100 million and $115 million for the year. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for PL remained ‘extremely bullish,’ unchanged in the past 24 hours, while message volume was ‘extremely high’ in the same period. A bullish Stocktwits trader called it a “double beat,” and added that they were a “clean beat,” with 58% year-over-year growth that “blew past” expectations. Another trader said, “You cannot have a better earnings report than this one,” calling the double beat “way beyond expectations.” The trader added Planet Labs is a “massive player in the space sector” and that “the ride is only beginning.” A third trader pointed to the softer Q3 guidance, stating that it was mainly due to “contract timing + investment” and “not because demand disappeared.” PL stock has lost 2.7% year-to-date. Also See: OpenAI Launches GPT-6 Astra As AI Race Intensifies — Calls It A ‘Generational Leap’ For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com. Aveek Bhowmik has no position in any of the stocks mentioned in this article. StockTwits' news team content is for informational purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. For more, see our editorial policy. This article was originally published on StockTwits. Related: SoFi's Kraken Deal Grows Its Stablecoin Reach — Analyst Calls It 'Another Positive Development' But Still Sees 13% Downside SoFi's Kraken Deal Grows Its Stablecoin Reach — Analyst Calls It 'Another Positive Development' But Still Sees 13% Downside TSLA Stock Slips Overnight As Safety Regulator Scrutinizes Cybercab — Retail Fumes Over Event Blackout

Planet Labs PBC (PL) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.02 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of $0.02 per share. This compares to a loss of $0.03 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +200.00%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this company would post a loss of $0.03 per share when it actually produced a loss of $0.03, delivering no surprise. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times. Planet Labs PBC, which belongs to the Zacks Satellite and Communication industry, posted revenues of $116.05 million for the quarter ended July 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 10.67%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $73.39 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates four times 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. Planet Labs PBC shares have added about 1.4% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 12%. While Planet Labs PBC 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 Planet Labs PBC was mixed. 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 #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with 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 the current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is -$0.02 on $113.41 million in revenues for the coming quarter and -$0.07 on $436.68 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, Satellite and Communication is currently in the bottom 11% 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. Paychex (PAYX), another stock in the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector, has yet to report results for the quarter ended August 2026. This payroll processor and human-resources services provider is expected to post quarterly earnings of $1.33 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +9%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days. Paychex's revenues are expected to be $1.62 billion, up 5.1% from the year-ago quarter. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Planet Labs PBC (PL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Paychex, Inc. (PAYX) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research