Gogo Inc. (NASDAQ:GOGO) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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And then later dates would be, when that chip comes off the foundry, and then when we take delivery, because as I said, bring up process between it coming off the foundry and being delivered to us and then our start of flight testing. I think those are the major milestones.

Lance Vitanza: That’s really helpful. And how long does the flight testing component take what would you expect?

Oakleigh Thorne: We start testing flying the whole network, it takes about two months, but once we have the chip, but we will burn down most of the risk around flight testing and fine-tuning of the FPGA.

Lance Vitanza: Right. I am not so much worried about the risk, as I am just trying to think about the timeframe and calibrating there but that’s helpful. And then just sort of related question, I guess, with the Galileo launch, set to launch relatively quickly on the heels of the 5G launch, do we have to worry about the 5G launch being softer than expected or pressured by aircraft operators, basically saying, what, I was going to go with 5G, but now Galileo is going to be here in a couple of months, maybe I should hold off and wait for that?

Oakleigh Thorne: Yeah. Look, it’s not ideal to have these two product launches land on top of each other and that wasn’t the design as you well know, we were going to originally have 5G out last year. But I think that, we don’t see a conflict, because we don’t see — we see these products is being positioned at very different segments of the market and while the delays have sort of confused that communication, I think, we are starting to see it get straightened out. The 5G is really aimed at North American market, because that’s its coverage, it’s aimed at those sort of medium size jets on down that want a really good product but are still somewhat cost conscious, right? They want an affordable product and 5G will be cheaper than any satellite product.

The HDX is aimed at sort of medium-size jets on down the outside the U.S. and those planes today have no connectivity option whatsoever, no broadband connectivity option, whatsoever. And medium-size jets on down that fly outside the U.S. like to the Caribbean or Canada or Mexico, et cetera, Hawaii, which is in the U.S., of course, but it is over a large piece of ocean. So that’s where that’s aimed. And then the FDX is a heavy jet product, and that’s for, the big jets that either fly around the U.S. and a lot of connectivity or fly transcontinental routes and it’s going to be more aiming probably at the transcontinental space. So they are very different segments and we are trying to be very clear with the market in terms of communicating which products should be the right products for each segment.

Lance Vitanza: Thanks very much, I appreciate your help.

Oakleigh Thorne: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks.

Operator: One moment for the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Scott Searle with ROTH MKM. Your line is now open.

Scott Searle: Hey. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I appreciate all the detail. And maybe, Oak, just to dive in quickly in terms of the maintenance events, engine part availability, et cetera, that has been delaying AOL. The last quarter shipments for ATG units were down pretty significantly, I think, they are about 100 units below where it had averaged over the last six quarters or so. It sounds like despite that you are having record activations and you are starting to see a pickup in terms of suspension going away in the month of October. And I believe you indicated as well that there are only about 40 units in the channel that are unspoken for. So implied in the fourth quarter guidance is another weak ATG unit quarter.

So the question is, as we get into 2024, are we completely burned down in normalized in terms of channel inventory and that balance now with prolongated maintenance events, but now that’s starting to work its way through the channel, we start to see a re-acceleration both of ATG units being shipped and AOL aircraft starting to ramp back up again?

Oakleigh Thorne: Yeah. I think the inventory burn down is definitely taking place. When you really look at the 850 or so, there’s an awful lot of those that have actually already been installed. We talked about 200 last quarter, this quarter, that’s down to 187 and actually it’s much more dynamic than that. There were — of the 200, 79 were actually activated, that was then offset by increased shipments that took that number back up to 187. So we are feeling much better about that part of the inventory, if you will. And like we said, of that 140 are spoken for, 32 of those really are at dealers that took inventory one or two units during COVID, hoping they get an order, they haven’t and that may be sitting there, but the rest are just a couple of dealers that move a lot of inventory.

So we feel that is normalizing and then that will help orders somewhat. I think the countervailing force next year will be people want to make sure that they don’t end up with a lot of L5 inventory after we launch LX5. So that order to fulfill current orders, but I don’t think they will be stocking up… [Ends Abruptly]

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