Chris Moore
Analyst · Raymond James and Associates
Thanks, Oak, and good morning. I'm happy to join you today as CEO of Gogo Inc. I've spent the last two decades in the global telecoms and IT business space, joining Satcom Direct in late 2012. In the years since, we have successfully expanded our global footprint to provide premium satellite connectivity solutions to aircraft across the global business aviation and military government sectors. Joining forces with Gogo is an incredibly exciting opportunity. Like so many in the industry, I have long admired the Gogo team, and I'm honored to lead it. As Oak noted, the synergy between the two companies is already evident, and I look forward to what we can achieve together for the benefits of our customers, partners, shareholders and team. Let's review our Q4 performance, which reflects the fundamental strengths of our business, driven by our strong market position as the only multi orbit connectivity company in Aviation, along with durable demand trends. On a standalone basis, Gogo met or exceeded its 2024 guidance on all metrics, excluding transaction expenses, and SD continued to show growth as demand for GEO solutions remains across the global business aviation and military government mobility markets. Zac will provide more detailed insights into our financial performance shortly, but I want to highlight some key areas of growth and success. Oak shared the news of receiving PMA, but there is other big news on the Galileo front as well. We have added another OEM selecting Galileo HDX as a line fit option for major small mid airframe, which we will announce later this year. This brings Galileo availability for customers, ordering new aircraft on four major OEMs in business aviation. We also received the first EASA STC with Airbus on their A319 platform. In a few minutes, when I get into our strategic initiatives, I'll provide more detail on HDX STCs and performance, all of which is positive news. For now, let me jump into -- how our products fared in Q4 and calendar 2024. Our [GEO product] (ph) line has shown impressive growth, particularly in terms of aircraft online, which grew to 1,249 an increase of 65 compared to the prior quarter. As a reminder, over 74% of our GEO contracts are more than one year. This demonstrates the power of the OEM line fit as many of these systems are installed at the factory. It also shows the proclivity of many buyers to take both LEO and GEO offerings in order to get the capacity, redundancy and global coverage that neither LEO or GEO can provide alone. At the premium end of the business aviation sector, demand for more capacity is surging due to the prevalence of cloud data storage, integration of aircraft cabin networks and video conferencing. Demand for redundancy is also surging as busy executives want to get more work done while in the air and not suffer interruptions. And finally, coverage is critical because neither LEO or GEO are truly global. For instance, no LEO provider can provide service today over India or China, but GEO can. And only Gogo can meet that demand with a single integrated global solution with the ability to prioritize data traffic dependent on application and location. ATG product line. We achieved record upgrades from our classic to AVANCE platform in the fourth quarter, which are critical for the success of our LTE program and drive easily upgradable real estate on aircraft. Additionally, we saw record ARPU at $3,500 representing a 3.4% growth compared to prior year. Furthermore, we shipped 906 AVANCE units in 2024, our second highest ever and up from 894 in 2023. Gogo strategy remains focused on solidifying our position as the trusted provider in the aviation connectivity market. This involves delivering unique multi-band and multi-orbit capability, which is particularly important for high-end users who demand redundancy, choice and are willing to invest in maximum global capacity. Gogo's approach to multi network open architecture platforms ensures broad mission coverage across both business aviation and military government sectors by offering dual dissimilar options such as combining air-to-ground with Satcom or LEO with GEO. The flexibility that is core to our future proofed antenna design strategy, hinges on supporting multiple barriers with network agnostic, modular terminals and extends across our product line, including our HDX and FDX Galileo antennas. As a result, with our expanding fleet, Gogo has control over the most vital real estate on the aircraft and hardware and software that can utilize multiple bands, operators and orbits. With the upcoming launch of multiple Ka LEO networks, Gogo can leverage our terminal and network architecture so that we remain agnostic for our customers, enabling the latest developments from the satellite operators on any aircraft type. Beyond our owned ATG network, over time, we will pursue revenue sharing agreements directly with operators to access new bands and orbits where we control retail pricing, ensuring we maintain a strong market position and deliver value to our stakeholders. Our ongoing strategic initiatives are directly in support of this long term strategy. I'll provide some updates now on our key projects: Galileo, our LEO solution Gogo 5G, our next-gen ATG solution and the FCC program that is providing upgrading, sorry, our EVDO network and creating a larger base of AVANCE customers. I'll also provide some color on the opportunity in the MilGov vertical, starting with Gogo Galileo. As a reminder, Galileo comes in two versions, a smaller HDX terminal and a larger FDX terminal. The Galileo HDX terminal is our first to market all aircraft product designed to fit on any size of aircraft and will deliver peak speeds approaching 60 megabits per second, which is 12 to 60 times Gogo's current ATG product offerings. The great news is that we have aircraft on the OneWeb network today consistently getting speeds in this 50 to 60 megabits range. Even better news is that we expect a software upgrade in Q2 that will increase that throughput by 20% to 30%. HDX is ideal for the 12,000 midsize and smaller aircraft which fly outside of North America and have no broadband solution today, an aircraft among the 11,000 midsize and smaller aircraft registered inside North America that often fly regionally outside of CONUS or [want faster mean] (ph) speeds than 5G can provide alone. Our Galileo FDX terminal is a best-in-class product specifically designed for larger jets and will deliver consistent speeds approaching 200 megabits per second. It is ideal for the 9,700 super mid and larger jets that undergo long range intercontinental missions or long range missions within North America. The FDX antenna is on schedule to launch in the second half of this year with several OEMs already awarding us line fit approval for the FDX on all models of their aircraft. Despite a late change in FAA testing requirements in December, which caused a slight delay in obtaining PMA approval for the HDX terminal, we have just commenced shipping the HDX product to dealers to start their STC project. We've already shipped 14 HDX units this week with many more to be shipped soon. On top of that, we added three more STC deals to the 27 we had last quarter and now cover more than 20,000 aircraft globally. We also have Textron cutting the HDX in two line bit on the Longitude in 2025, with other models to follow. Now let me turn our attention to the 5G ATG network, which we are designing for large segments of roughly 20,000 midsize and smaller business jets and turboprop aircraft that fly predominantly in North America and wants an excellent connectivity experience at more affordable price than satellite solutions. We are pleased to share that the 5G chip is in fabrication, which is scheduled for completion in May. Gogo continues to work very closely with our vendors, partners to ensure a smooth process from fabrication through launch. The market still continues to respond enthusiastically to the 5G value proposition. By the end of the fourth quarter, we shipped [404] (ph) pre-provision kits, an increase from 342 at the end of the last quarter. Out of those, 233 kits have already been installed and are operational on our network with an L5 LRU. These kits include the 5G MB13 antennas and an LX5 box, which we can be easily swapped with the 5G LX5 once we receive the chip. We have 25 completed STCs end of Q4 2024, up from 21 in Q3. We look forward to bringing this product to market later this year, which will serve a core part of the Gogo customer base and extend the life of our very profitable ATG product line. Now turning briefly to the FCC Securing Network program, what we call Gogo Evolution. Gogo was awarded $334 million grant from the FCC under the program to incentives to accelerate the removal of Chinese telecom technology from our EVDO ground network. In December, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act funding bill, which fully funded this program. This means that the previously anticipated shortfall of $50 million to $60 million has now been covered, and Gogo will be reimbursed for all reimbursable expenses. We now expect that only to be $10 million to $15 million of our expenses associated with the program will be non-reimbursable. As Oak pointed out, this fully funding strengthens our 2026 free cash flow projections from prior expectations and enables us to enhance incentives for customers to convert from classic to advanced, or C1 ahead of our 2026 cutover. The upgrading of customers' hardware alongside our network investments enables us to deliver a stronger product for a larger portion of our fleet and given the ease of upgrades within our advanced system, positions us for even stickier customer relationships over longer lifetimes with systems that are future proofed for future advancements in technology. We are also pleased to announce that the Gogo C1 line replacement unit has received supplemental type certification, which will enable us to quickly connect classic customers to LTE. The certification covers 70% of North America's [2500] (ph) Gogo legacy air-to-ground customer aircraft. In the MilGov vertical, we see tremendous opportunity for Gogo solutions to be integrated with SD's GEO offerings. Our current revenue mix in this segment includes a significant portion of legacy narrowband services, which are expected to decline gradually over the next several years. However, the real growth will come from the transition of MilGov to broadband solutions. Today, almost all MilGov mobility aircraft still rely heavily on voice over radio and narrowband for communications, which is limited in bandwidth. There is a significant effort underway to upgrade to new broadband satellite technologies. For example, under the proliferated low earth orbit program, PLEO, which Gogo is a supplier, the Department of Defense recently increased its projected spending on LEO satellite services from $900 million over the next ten years to $13 billion in the same period. And the U.S. Air Force 25x25 program, aims to equip 25% of its 1,100 mobility aircraft with satellite communications by the end of 2025. This still leaves 75% of the fleet without satellite connectivity, which the Air Force believes must be addressed, presenting a substantial opportunity for growth for Gogo. Gogo's LEO product will be an excellent complement to our GEO products in this market due to the [DoD's PACE] (ph) protocol, which requires military programs to have primary, alternate, contingent and emergency systems. While there has been some delays in awards as this new administration settles in and reviews programs, the general trend towards better communication systems for the aircraft aligns with the administration's broader goal of modernizing the military. Gogo's LEO product will be an excellent complement to Gogo's GEO product in this market space. And with these initiatives in place, the MilGov segment is very promising for Gogo's long term outlook and adds significant diversification to our portfolio. In conclusion, Gogo has a lot of work behind us that has positioned us uniquely well to capitalize on the opportunity of a new era in flight connectivity. Though the delay in our HDX PMA will hurt us financially this year, we expect strong profitable revenue growth next year in both MilGov and Business Aviation as HDX, FDX and 5G begin to drive service revenue, offsetting flattish GEO revenue and modest declines in older Gogo ATG products and narrowband satellite products. We expect that gross profit combined with the reduction in our net program spend reduced Galileo Catalyst marketing spend, full year synergy benefits, reduced synergy investments and full federal funding of the SEC rip and replace program will help us drive EBITDA and cash flow growth in 2026. And now I will turn to Zac for the numbers.