Virgin Galactic (SPCE) reported its first results as a public company late Tuesday and announced more customers for its space tourism flights. Virgin Galactic stock was flat.
XThe company isn't flying people yet. Founder Richard Branson said that flights will begin within a year, and he expects profitability by 2021.
But Virgin Galactic has strong interest from customers across the world. As of Sept. 30 it has received reservations from over 600 people in 60 countries, accounting for $80 million in deposits and $120 million in potential revenue.
The cost of a tourism flight on SpaceShipTwo, which can hold six passengers and two pilots, is $250,000. But Branson hopes for ticket prices to fall to $40,000 to $50,000 in the next 10 years.
Virgin also had 3,557 expressions of interest in flight reservations by the end of Q3.
Other space firms, like Tesla (TSLA) co-founder and CEO Elon Musk's SpaceX and Amazon (AMZN) founder and CEO Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, are also looking at tourism options to help fund bigger space ambitions, like journeys to the moon and Mars.
Virgin Galactic Reports Loss
Shares dropped 3.8% to close at 9.72 on the stock market today, after hitting resistance at their 50- and 200-day averages. Virgin Galactic became the first publically traded space company on Oct. 28 after a reverse merger with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings earlier this year.
Social Capital Hedosophia took a 49% stake in Virgin Galactic, giving the company an enterprise value of $1.5 billion, according to Virgin Galactic.
Virgin Galactic reported a net loss of $51.5 million for the third quarter, on revenue of $800,000, which was generated by transporting scientific payloads and providing engineering services.
The company won't host an analyst earnings conference call for Q3, but will following Q4 results in February.
Follow Gillian Rich on Twitter @IBD_GRich for space news and more.
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