Planet Labs PBC is dedicated to the creation, deployment, and management of extensive satellite constellations. Its core mission is to provide frequent, ...
Planet Labs PBC, commonly known as Planet, is a leading provider of global, daily satellite imagery and geospatial data. Founded in 2010 by former NASA scientists Chris Boshuizen, Will Marshall, and Robbie Schingler, the company was initially named Cosmogia before rebranding to Planet Labs. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Planet ...Planet Labs PBC, commonly known as Planet, is a leading provider of global, daily satellite imagery and geospatial data. Founded in 2010 by former NASA scientists Chris Boshuizen, Will Marshall, and Robbie Schingler, the company was initially named Cosmogia before rebranding to Planet Labs. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Planet went public on the New York Stock Exchange in April 2021 under the ticker PL, becoming a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) to balance profit with social and environmental goals.
Business and Products: Planet operates the largest Earth observation fleet, consisting of multiple satellite constellations, including the RapidEye, PlanetScope, SkySat, and the newer Pelican series. These satellites capture high-resolution, multi-spectral, and panchromatic imagery of the Earth's entire landmass daily. The core product is a cloud-native platform that processes and delivers imagery and analytics, enabling temporal analysis and integration with other data sources. The company also provides space-based equipment and complementary software solutions, catering to sectors such as agriculture, cartography, forestry, finance, insurance, and government entities at federal, state, and municipal levels.
Services and Cost Structure: Planet's services include data subscription models, custom analytics, and satellite tasking for high-resolution images. The company's cost structure is heavily invested in research and development (R&D), with R&D expenses accounting for roughly 34.9% of revenue, and sales, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses at 52.6% of revenue. The company has a gross profit margin of approximately 55.5%, but due to high operating costs, it has been operating at a net loss, with a negative net profit margin of -111.2% in the trailing twelve months (TTM).
Financial Overview: As of the latest data, Planet has a market capitalization of around $7.97 billion. The stock price is $23.93, with a price-to-sales ratio of 23.74 and a price-to-book ratio of 18.64. The company's enterprise value is approximately $8.09 billion, reflecting an EV-to-sales multiple of 24.09. Planet has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.1 and a current ratio of 2.81, indicating decent short-term liquidity. The company generates revenue per share of $0.971, but has negative earnings per share of -$1.08. Free cash flow is positive but small, at $0.136 per share, and the company has a cash per share of $2.118. Despite ongoing losses, Planet has maintained a strong cash position, with a cash ratio of 1.22, suggesting it has sufficient cash to cover short-term liabilities.
Key People and Leadership: Will Marshall, co-founder, serves as CEO, leading overall strategy. Robbie Schingler is co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, while Ashley Fieglein Johnson is President and CFO. The leadership team brings a mix of scientific and entrepreneurial expertise, with backgrounds from NASA and other tech firms.
Future Outlook: Planet is focused on expanding its satellite constellation with AI-enabled Pelican satellites and growing its government and commercial customer base. The company aims to achieve profitability by scaling its data platform and enhancing value-added services, while continuing to advance its mission of 'imaging the world every day to make change visible'.
Challenges and Opportunities: Planet faces challenges in achieving profitability due to high capital expenditures and operational costs, but it also has significant opportunities in the growing Earth observation market. With increasing demand for geospatial data in climate monitoring, agriculture, and national security, Planet is well-positioned to capitalize on these trends, especially with its unique daily revisit capability.
YoYYoY means Year-over-Year. It compares the latest annual value with the previous annual value to show long-term trend strength.
QoQQoQ means Quarter-over-Quarter. It compares the latest quarter with the immediately previous quarter to show short-term momentum changes.
RevenueThe total money that came through the front door from selling things, before paying a single bill. Think of it as the grand total of every credit card swipe from customers. (YoY compares this year to last year's performance, while QoQ compares the current three months to the previous three).
$307.7M
+25.9%
+8.4%
Net IncomeThe absolute bottom line. If the company paid every single supplier, employee, banker, and tax collector, this is the actual money left in their pocket at the end of the day.
$-246.9M
-100.4%
+8.9%
Gross MarginThe basic markup. If they sell a $100 pair of sneakers, this percentage tells you how much of that price tag is profit right after paying for the rubber and shoelaces, but before paying for things like store rent or TV commercials.
+56.1%
-2.0%
-1.2%
Operating MarginThe 'day job' efficiency score. Out of every dollar a customer spends, this shows how many cents the company keeps after making the product AND paying for all the everyday corporate overhead (like salaries, marketing, and keeping the lights on).
-30.9%
+35.0%
+10.6%
Net MarginThe final take-home percentage. When you strip away every conceivable cost, tax, and interest payment, this is the exact number of cents the company truly gets to keep from every dollar in sales.
-80.2%
-59.1%
+16.0%
Free Cash FlowThe holy grail of corporate cash. It's the spendable, physical money left over after the business pays for its daily operations AND buys the big, expensive upgrades (like new factories or servers) it needs to survive. This is the 'free' money they can use to pay dividends or buy back stock.
$57.6M
+198.3%
-96.6%
FCF MarginThe ultimate cash conversion rate. It shows how good the company is at turning regular sales directly into cold, hard, spendable cash. A high percentage means the business is an absolute cash-printing machine.
+18.7%
+178.0%
-81.3%
Debt / EquityThe financial risk gauge. It compares how much of the company's empire was built using borrowed money (loans) versus the owners' own money (shareholders). A high number means they are heavily leveraged and playing a riskier game; a low number means they are playing it safe.
245.4%
+4911.2%
-55.2%
Current RatioThe 12-month survival check. It simply compares the cash they have right now (plus things they can quickly turn into cash) against the immediate bills they absolutely must pay this year. A score above 1 means they have enough in the wallet to cover the upcoming bills without panicking.
1.65x
-22.4%
+69.9%
Total AssetsThe absolute size of the company's empire. It bundles together absolutely everything of value they own—from the cash in the register and the inventory in the warehouse, to the software patents in the vault and the factories on the ground.
Operator: Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Planet Labs PBC First Quarter of Fiscal 2027 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Cleo Palmer-Poroner, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Cleo Palmer-Poroner: Thanks, operator, and hello, everyone. Welcome to Planet's First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2027 Earnings Call. 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 plan 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 you mention 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.pae.com. Further, throughout this call, we 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 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 excellent quarter, delivering record revenue and signing an 8-figure deal with an international customer. We also successfully …