Al Root
Aerospace and defense company Beta Technologies reported its first quarter as a publicly traded company.
It went well.
Thursday morning, the maker of electric aircraft and aircraft components announced a third-quarter operating loss of $81 million from sales of $8.9 million. Wall Street was looking for a $90 million loss from sales of $6.8 million. A year ago, Beta recorded an operating loss of $73 million on sales of $3.1 million.
Looking ahead, Beta expects 2025 sales of between $29 million and $33 million. Wall Street projects $30.5 million.
Beta stock was up 1.7% in premarket trading at $30, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 0.1%. That still puts shares below the Nov. 3 IPO price of $34.
Beta is obviously still very new to investors. The company is developing electric aviation technologies and plans to commercialize what amounts to electric helicopters and planes by 2027 or 2028.
That means significant sales are still down the road. Jefferies analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu projects $4.2 billion in annual sales for 2030. She rates shares Hold and has a $30 price target for the stock.
Kahyaoglu is the only Hold rating. Seven other analysts rate shares Buy. The average analyst price target is about $38 a share.
Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Valentini rates shares Buy and has a $47 price target for the stock. "Beta is an aircraft OEM and parts supplier, the most attractive business models in aviation," he wrote earlier this week. "It has partnered with GE Aerospace to build a hybrid vehicle for defence, and has taken a team approach to selling motors and chargers to competitors, which will help it scale."
Valentini calls Beta the "best positioned" of companies trying to develop electric aircraft, comparing it to the likes of Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation.
Developing planes isn't cheap, and Beta is projected to use about $300 million to $400 million a year for the next few years before turning the corner near the end of the decade.
Beta ended the quarter with $687.6 million in cash on its books. That excludes approximately $1.1 billion in IPO net proceeds raised in November.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 04, 2025 08:21 ET (13:21 GMT)
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