Investing.com — Wolfe Research analysts have initiated coverage on SpaceX stock (NASDAQ: SPCX) with a price target of $175, even as the company’s stock began trading on Friday following the world’s largest ever IPO. While the stock already closed 19% higher at nearly $161, Wolfe’s price target is even higher as the firm believes that the company’s breaking of the cost curve supports an “out-of-this-world” near-term valuation.
Having a near-zero internal space launch cost provides SpaceX with one of the widest moats in history, Wolfe points out, that will allow the company to achieve 70% top-line growth and a near doubling of EBITDA margins by 2030. And that “should just be getting started,” the analysts said.
“SpaceX turned a competitive moat into an ocean of opportunity that we don’t see others crossing. Bringing (internal) cost of launch to near-zero alongside a willingness to push boundaries of scale support out-of-this-world near-term valuation,” Wolfe Research stated in a note.
Explaining how the company broke the cost curve, the firm said that reusability is what made it possible, starting with the Falcon 9, and now even more so with Starship.
“Reusability was a game-changer for launch cost economics for both market stimulation and margins,” the analysts said, adding that the initial cost advantage over the competition achieved with the Falcon 9 is still untouched, even as “the potential economics of Starship brings the advantage to a whole new level.”
This is because the Falcon 9 has just first-stage reusability, but with the Starship, both stages are designed to be fully reusable, while also being designed for fast turnaround times.
With the Falcon 9, the upper stage is expended each flight at a cost of $8-$10 million. However, according to Wolfe Research estimates, full reusability with the Starship would bring the incremental cost of launch from $14M for the Falcon 9 (for around 20T of payload) to under $3-5M for a Starship launch (with 100T+ of payload). It could also be even lower, the firm said, with the minimum cost set by the $1M/flight in fuel.
In addition to this, the company is also competing in an already mature terrestrial broadband and wireless market with Starlink, making it an “economic winner.” According to Wolfe, the company has broken even even before the “big phase” of subscriber growth ahead.
The connectivity business reached a key inflection point in 2024, the firm noted, with EBITDA less capital expenditures turning positive. The firm sees a path to generating more than $90 billion in EBITDA and over $70 billion in EBITDA less capex by 2030, while expanding Starlink’s capacity twelve-fold.