EchoStar's Q2 net income of $8.46B ($24.12/share) came almost entirely from a $9.73B non-cash gain on deconsolidating bankrupt DISH DBS and DISH Wireless. Revenue fell 4.0% to $3.58B as Pay-TV and Boost subscribers declined, while $20.25B of AT&T spectrum cash arrived in July.
Revenue
$3.6B
-4.0% YoY
Net income
$8.5B
Diluted EPS
$24.12
Operating margin
14.3%
Overview
EchoStar's second quarter of 2026 shows a net income of $8.46 billion attributable to shareholders, or $24.12 per diluted share, against a loss of $306 million a year earlier. Almost none of that is operating profit. It comes from a single $9.73 billion non-cash "deconsolidation gain", booked on June 30, 2026 when two subsidiaries, DISH DBS (the DISH TV / Sling TV pay-TV business) and DISH Wireless (the legacy 5G network), filed prepackaged Chapter 11 cases. "Prepackaged" means most creditors agreed to the restructuring plan before the filing. Revenue fell 4.0% to $3.58 billion. Operating income was $513 million, compared with a $213 million loss, mostly because the costs of the abandoned 5G network had largely disappeared.
EchoStar reports no discontinued operations. Management concluded the deconsolidated units do not meet that accounting test, so the net income figure above is both "continuing" and "total" net income. Remove the gain and pre-tax income was about $61 million ($9,790M reported minus the $9,729M gain), compared with a $392 million pre-tax loss in Q2 2025.
What EchoStar is now
The company that reported this quarter is not the one that will report next quarter. The 10-Q explains the moving parts:
Pay-TV (DISH TV, Sling TV). This is still in the Q2 income statement, because results run through June 30. It is off the balance sheet from that date, while DISH DBS is under the control of a bankruptcy court. The filing says DISH DBS is "targeting emergence" in the second half of 2026. At that point EchoStar would regain control and bring the business back onto its books at fair value.
Wireless (Boost Mobile). This stays consolidated. Since November 15, 2025, Boost has run as a "hybrid MNO": it keeps its own network core but carries all customer traffic on AT&T's network. Before that it mainly rented capacity as an MVNO, a carrier that doesn't own the towers its customers use.
Broadband & Satellite Services (Hughes). This was consolidated at quarter-end. However, EchoStar's August 3, 2026 Form 8-K reports that Hughes Satellite Systems Corp. (HSSC) and several of its subsidiaries filed their own Chapter 11 cases on August 2, 2026. That was the day after $1.377 billion of HSSC notes came due. The 10-Q, filed the next day, does not say whether Hughes will also be deconsolidated.
Spectrum. The AT&T sale of the 3.45 GHz and 600 MHz licenses closed on July 28, 2026, after the quarter ended. The AWS-4, H-Block and AWS-3 licenses went into a trust on May 22, 2026 and are due to pass to SpaceX around November 30, 2027.
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In its "Operational Liquidity" section, management states that from Q3 2026 "our results of operations will be materially different," because DISH DBS and DISH Wireless will no longer be included.
Key metrics
Metric
Q2 2026
Q2 2025
YoY Change
Revenue
$3,576.2M
$3,725.0M
-4.0%
Operating income (loss)
$512.9M
-$213.4M
n/m
Operating margin
14.3%
-5.7%
+20.0 pts
Net income (loss) attributable to EchoStar
$8,462.4M
-$306.1M
n/m
Diluted EPS
$24.12
-$1.06
n/m
Adjusted OIBDA (non-GAAP)
$681.2M
$279.6M
+143.6%
Pay-TV subscribers (period end)
6.391M
7.108M
-10.1%
Wireless subscribers (period end)
7.375M
7.357M
+0.2%
Wireless ARPU
$38.60
$37.40
+3.2%
Broadband subscribers (period end)
622K
819K
-24.1%
n/m = not meaningful (sign change). Operating margin is operating income as a share of revenue: what is left after running the business, before interest and tax. Adjusted OIBDA is operating income with depreciation, amortization and impairments added back, a rough proxy for cash operating profit. ARPU is average monthly revenue per user.
How the spectrum deals and the bankruptcy filings show up in the numbers
The deconsolidation gain. At June 30, the liabilities of DISH DBS and DISH Wireless exceeded their assets by $11.43 billion. When EchoStar removed them from its balance sheet, it valued its remaining stake at $0, so writing off those net liabilities produced a gain. The filing lists three offsets at the parent level: a $1.51 billion deferred-tax adjustment, a $133 million credit-loss allowance and a $51 million parent guarantee. That leaves $9.729 billion. The filing says the gain "is not currently taxable," because the subsidiaries remain in EchoStar's tax group. No cash changed hands. Shareholders' equity rose from $5.77 billion at December 31 to $14.16 billion, and the accumulated deficit of $2.88 billion turned into accumulated earnings of $5.44 billion.
AT&T sale: held for sale at June 30, closed in July. After FCC and DOJ approval on May 12, 2026, the licenses being sold to AT&T were reclassified as "Regulatory authorizations held for sale." They appear as a $16.82 billion current asset. At the July 28 closing, AT&T paid $20.25 billion in cash to EchoStar and put another $2.4 billion into an FCC-mandated "Wireless Creditor Trust." That trust pays network vendors and landlords owed money over the abandoned 5G build. No gain on this sale is in Q2, because it closed after the quarter ended.
SpaceX: still pending. Total consideration is about $20 billion, of which up to $11 billion comes as about 261.8 million SpaceX Class A shares at a fixed $42.40 each (after SpaceX's 5-for-1 split). Part of the rest pays off $9.821 billion of EchoStar secured notes. Until closing, the SpaceX-funded trust pays interest on those notes. In May, SpaceX also reimbursed EchoStar $414 million for interest it had already paid. The $828 million of interim debt service paid so far sits in liabilities, and the filing says it "will be recognized as a gain upon the closing."
Segment results
Segment (Q2)
Revenue 2026
Revenue 2025
Change
Operating income 2026
Operating income 2025
OIBDA 2026
Pay-TV
$2,248.5M
$2,462.2M
-8.7%
$542.3M
$595.6M
$600.7M
Wireless
$929.0M
$931.8M
-0.3%
-$0.1M
-$118.2M
$50.8M
Broadband & Satellite
$316.9M
$339.8M
-6.7%
$50.5M
-$36.7M
$100.5M
Other (legacy 5G)
$91.5M
$71.9M
+27.4%
-$80.5M
-$654.8M
-$69.1M
Pay-TV still made most of the money: 63% of revenue and more than all of the consolidated operating income. It is also shrinking. Service revenue fell 9.9%, which the filing attributes to a "lower average Pay-TV subscriber base." DISH TV lost 161,000 subscribers net and Sling TV lost 80,000. DISH TV churn (the share of customers cancelling each month) rose to 1.42% from 1.29%, which the filing blames partly on "programming interruptions" during carriage-contract disputes. Gross DISH TV additions fell 26.3% to 42,000, while the cost of acquiring each new DISH TV customer rose 33% to $1,529. Those same blackouts also lowered programming costs, so cost of services dropped to 61.3% of service revenue from 63.3%. That margin support is temporary. SG&A rose 9.5%, which the filing puts down to restructuring-related professional fees and higher personnel costs.
Wireless (Boost) moved from a $118 million operating loss to roughly break-even (-$0.1 million), mainly by spending less. SG&A fell $51 million on lower marketing and acquisition spending, equipment cost of sales fell $84 million, and cost of services fell 3.5% as the "lower network services costs per subscriber" from the AT&T hybrid model began to show. Service revenue grew 4.9% and ARPU rose 3.2% to $38.60, helped by customers moving to pricier plans. The subscriber base went the other way. Boost lost 118,000 net subscribers, compared with a gain of 212,000 a year earlier. Gross additions fell 20.5% to 504,000 and churn rose to 2.88% from 2.69%. The period-end count of 7.375 million also excludes about 34,000 paused lines that were removed in June.
Hughes turned a $36.7 million loss into $50.5 million of operating income. Much of that swing is accounting: depreciation fell 52%, to $50 million from $104 million, because the assets were impaired in Q4 2025. The prior-year quarter also included a one-time project charge. Underlying OIBDA still rose 48.4% to $100.5 million on cost cuts: SG&A fell 29.5%. Service revenue fell 14.1% on weaker consumer and international enterprise broadband, and Hughes lost 59,000 net broadband subscribers. The filing cites competition from "satellite-based competitors."
Other is the abandoned 5G network. Its loss shrank to $80 million from $655 million. Depreciation dropped by $306 million after the network was impaired in Q3 2025. Cost of services went to zero because no customer traffic has used the network since November 15, 2025. Tower leases and other decommissioning costs, $136 million, are now booked under cost of sales instead.
Year to date
Metric (six months)
H1 2026
H1 2025
YoY Change
Revenue
$7,243.7M
$7,594.7M
-4.6%
Operating income (loss)
$905.8M
-$301.5M
n/m
Net income (loss) attributable to EchoStar
$8,315.5M
-$508.8M
n/m
Diluted EPS
$23.76
-$1.77
n/m
Adjusted OIBDA (non-GAAP)
$1,174.5M
$679.8M
+72.8%
Operating cash flow
$228.3M
$214.3M
+6.6%
Free cash flow (non-GAAP)
$2.6M
-$911.1M
n/m
Capital spending fell to $226 million from $1.13 billion now that the 5G build has stopped, so free cash flow was about zero. Operating cash flow was flat.
Interest costs rose sharply
Interest expense was $509 million, up from $279 million, even though debt is lower. The reason is capitalization. While the 5G network was being built, EchoStar could "capitalize" much of its interest, recording it as part of the asset's cost instead of an expense. Capitalized interest fell by $302 million this quarter, because EchoStar stopped capitalizing 5G interest at the end of August 2025. This is the main reason the operating improvement barely reached the bottom line before the gain.
Debt and liquidity
Debt at June 30: $17.63 billion principal, down from $26.35 billion at December 31. The drop comes from removing all DISH DBS notes and prepaying the $1.6 billion Term Loan and preferred shares due 2029 on March 16. Total debt including finance leases, net of discounts, was $17.43 billion.
After the AT&T closing (July 28): the $3.5 billion DISH Network 11 3/4% notes due 2027 were redeemed. The $2.844 billion intercompany loan owed to DISH DBS was repaid, and DISH DBS used that money to repay its $2.0 billion 7 3/4% notes. Together, about $6.3 billion of the June 30 debt balance was cleared.
What's left: mainly $9.821 billion of EchoStar notes that the SpaceX deal is structured to pay off. There are also $1.377 billion of HSSC (Hughes) notes that were due August 1, 2026. The 10-Q said HSSC did not have the cash or committed financing to repay them. The August 3 8-K reports that the Chapter 11 filing automatically accelerated those notes, and that enforcement is stayed.
Cash: cash, current restricted cash and current marketable securities totaled $1.55 billion, down from $3.16 billion. However, $1.05 billion of that is restricted money DISH DBS advanced to EchoStar to pay DISH DBS's own vendors, with a matching liability. Unrestricted cash plus marketable securities was about $496 million before the AT&T proceeds arrived.
Going concern: the filing says that, after the AT&T closing and the completed FCC payments, "substantial doubt regarding our ability to continue as a going concern does not exist."
Takeaway: The $8.46 billion profit and $24.12 EPS are an accounting effect of moving two insolvent subsidiaries off the books, not earnings power. Without the gain, pre-tax income was about $61 million. The real change is to the balance sheet: $20.25 billion of AT&T cash arrived in July, and about $6.3 billion of debt was repaid alongside it. What remains inside the consolidated company is small and under pressure. Boost is about break-even and losing subscribers, and Hughes filed for Chapter 11 a month after quarter-end.
Outlook
EchoStar gives no revenue or earnings guidance. The filing does point to several things ahead:
Q3 2026 will look very different. Pay-TV and the 5G network costs drop out of the results. If DISH DBS emerges from Chapter 11 in the second half of 2026 as targeted, it comes back in at fair value. Year-over-year comparisons will be hard to read for several quarters.
More one-off items are coming. The AT&T sale closed in Q3, the Hughes Chapter 11 case is under way, and the $828 million interim debt-service gain is set to be recognized when the SpaceX deal closes, targeted for around November 30, 2027.
Capex is expected "to continue to decrease during 2026."
For the businesses that stay with EchoStar, the key question is whether Boost can stop losing subscribers under the cheaper AT&T-based cost structure. It has shown it can reach break-even by cutting marketing, but gross additions fell 20% while doing so. EchoStar is increasingly a holding company for cash, a future SpaceX equity stake and a restructured DISH. Its value will depend more on how the Chapter 11 cases and the SpaceX closing play out than on quarterly operating results.
Source: EchoStar Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (filed August 3, 2026). Hughes Chapter 11 details are from EchoStar's Form 8-K filed August 3, 2026.