By
Bena Ilyas
April 25th, 2024
Virgin Galactic is looking beyond space tourism to completely change the face of transportation entirely. The price of SPCE stock is growing.
The possibility of space tourism is a very exciting one for the average person. The idea that anyone that can afford it can go into space on a leisure trip, points to the growth of technology while also making space more accessible. Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc (NYSE: SPCE) is the foremost company in this regard and has already seen an amazing demand for its space tourism option. However, the company is planning to do a lot more than just carry people to space. Virgin Galactic wants to revolutionize traveling entirely.
Virgin Galactic Expands Business
The company has its eyes set beyond just space travel. It wants to transport people from point to point in record time. Speaking to Yahoo Finance’s On The Move, the company’s CEO George Whitesides explained Virgin Galactic’s next step. According to him:
“What we are doing is essentially the only company that’s going to be taking people admittedly up to space. But taking people inside a winged vehicle faster than supersonic speed, we’re the only company going to be doing that with a winged vehicle.”
While not commercially available, supersonic aircrafts are not new. Even though there have been attempts to commercialize these types of flights, they are currently almost only being used for military purposes.
The space tourism business already proved to be quite big but this new expansion will make Virgin Galactic even bigger. The company says that its total addressable market (TAM) is about $900 billion. It wants to focus on the high-class market, which is at least a third of that, at $300 billion. Whitesides says that even if the company eventually only bites a small part, “we’re still talking about a huge TAM.”
Virgin Galactic (SPCE) Stock
SPCE has had quite the amazing run for a while now. However, last week, both Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley reduced their ratings for the stock. In response, it crashed 24% early on Thursday. Surprisingly by Friday, it had jumped by 12%. The stock closed at $25.98 on Monday. In pre-market trading today, it has climbed 5.6% trading around $27.
At the moment of writing, the stock is 1.74% up. SPCE is trading at $26.30.
For 2020, the company’s stock rise has been very impressive. However, many market analysts believe that it is just a bubble. Chairman Chamath Palihapitiya strongly disagrees with this. According to him, there are good reasons SPCE has pumped.
Virgin Galactic says 7,957 people have indicated an interest in its space trip. This pulls in tremendous revenue for the company. Palihapitiya said:
“If those 8,000 people – just those 8,000 people – it doesn’t seem like a lot but when you think that the price could be around $300,000 that’s 2.4 billion of pipeline.”
SPCE Vs TSLA
Palihapitiya also drew a parallel between SPCE and TSLA, comparing both rallies. This year, SPCE has already returned almost 123% with TSLA at 77.76%.
It would make sense for investors to get in and maintain a position with Virgin Galactic over Tesla, simply based on their 2020 returns. However, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) might be the more trusted stock because the company has actual products it sells where direct returns come from, as opposed to Virgin Galactic.