Firefly Aerospace Would Be Really Profitable If It Weren't for All Its Expenses

Firefly Aerospace (FLY 2.13%) reported Q2 2025 earnings last week, its first official earnings report since holding an amazingly (if only temporarily) successful initial public offering (IPO) in August. Firefly, you may recall, IPO'ed at $45 last month and quickly rocketed, closing its first day of trading up 33%. A stock's success can only be driven by pure momentum for so long, however, and Firefly stock began giving back its gains just as quickly, closing last week below $36 per share -- then falling 20% more on Tuesday after news that a Firefly rocket had exploded during testing drove the stock lower. By Tuesday's close, Firefly stock was trading just over $29 a share -- and 36% below its IPO offer price. The explosion was obviously bad news -- but Firefly's earnings report last week was arguably even worse. Photo of Earth taken from Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander. Image source: Firefly Aerospace. Firefly Aerospace Q2 earnings What went wrong with this rocket stock last week? Let's start with revenue. Firefly booked nearly $60 million in revenue in Q1 2025, the quarter in which it accomplished an astoundingly successful landing on the moon with its Blue Ghost spacecraft for NASA. The company's been hired to conduct three more such landings over the next four years, but even so, that's an event that can't recur every quarter. Without revenue from Blue Ghost to boost it, Q2 2025 revenue fell steeply to just $15.5 million. Year over year, that worked out to a 26% revenue decline. The good news is that with no lander to build, Firefly incurred a lower cost of sales in the quarter. As a result, gross profit grew 35% year over year. The bad news is that Firefly has several irons in the fire beyond just building lunar landers. The cost of investing in multiple new products, from Eclipse medium-lift rockets to Elytra spacecraft, while at the same time growing the company to support a faster cadence of rocket launches and spacecraft missions, added expenses that quickly drained away all gross profit -- and left Firefly Aerospace with a big net loss on the bottom line. All those darned expenses As revenue fell, selling, general, and administrative spending grew 2% in Q2. Research and development costs rose 16%, offsetting the savings from the lower cost of goods sold. Factor in 40% greater interest paid on the company's debt and a fivefold increase in "other" expenses, and Firefly ended up with an $80.3 million loss on the bottom line -- $5.78 per share. Ultimately, Firefly's sales fell 26% in Q2, and the company's losses increased by 26%. Not all bad news That's the bad news. Now here's the good. Turning to guidance, Firefly management predicted that, despite the weak performance in Q2, total revenue this year will reach $133 million to $145 million, up as much as 138% year over year. What's more, with year-to-date sales now at $71.4 million, the company is still trending toward the top of that range. Growth of 100%-plus is great news for Firefly. According to the analysts who've begun weighing in, the company's growth rate isn't just fast -- it's accelerating. Analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence see Firefly's revenue tripling next year after just doubling in 2025. Admittedly, because Firefly has numerous expenses, analysts don't expect the company to turn profitable in 2026, despite the rapid revenue growth. However, by 2027, revenue is expected to pass $765 million (and revenue growth will finally begin slowing down a bit, to 77%), and analysts are forecasting that Firefly will finally turn the corner and earn its first profit of $0.33 per share. Then that number is expected to double in 2028, to $0.73 per share. Is Firefly stock a buy? Admittedly, $0.33 a share (or even $0.73) still isn't a lot of profit to support Firefly's expensive price. Still, Firefly's 35% stock price decline since its IPO makes this space stock a lot cheaper than it used to be. If Firefly can figure out and fix the problem that caused its rocket to explode this week, it could present a pretty remarkable bargain, relative to how expensive the stock was on IPO day. At 89 times projected earnings two years away, Firefly isn't an obvious buy yet -- but it's getting there.