What happened
Shares of satellite communications company Globalstar (GSAT 3.20%), which took off last month on speculation that Apple (AAPL 0.83%) might build satellite telephony capability into its new iPhone 13 smartphone -- doubling Globalstar's stock price in less than a month's time -- came crashing back to Earth on Tuesday. As of 3:15 p.m. EDT, Globalstar stock is down 21%.
And Apple is the reason.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
As the theory went, you see, Apple was gearing up to announce new features and capabilities of this year's iPhone iteration, the iPhone 13. Well, as it turns out, Apple did announce the iPhone 13 at a reveal today, and as we just learned, it will have a $799 starting price, an A15 Bionic processor, an AMOLED screen, up to 1 TB in storage...
And no mention of satellite phone capability whatsoever.
Now what
That's only a bit of a letdown for satcom telephony provider Iridium Communications, which Bloomberg had already confirmed last month would not be partnering with Apple on any hypothetical sat-phone plans. (Iridium stock is down 3.7% anyway, perhaps because some investors were hoping Bloomberg was mistaken about that.)
For Globalstar, meanwhile, the lack of a satcom announcement at Apple's big event was a more crushing blow. Unprofitable and trading for an astounding 38 times trailing revenue as recently as Friday, Globalstar stock was priced as if its partnership on an Apple satellite phone was all but guaranteed to happen.
Now, that bubble has burst -- and I'm not sure there's much standing in the way of Globalstar stock falling back into the same penny stock territory it was trading at as recently as April.
