Thales and Airbus could also be considering merging their space divisions in order to create a stronger and more competitive pan-European business.
ADVERTISEMENTFrench defence giant Thales reported its half year 2024 results on Tuesday, with the company seeing record orders due to steadily increasing military budgets. For the first half of the year, Thales’ order intake shot up 26% to €10.8 billion, with the company’s order book also coming up to €47 billion, which was a new record high.
Sales for H1 jumped up 8.9% to €9.5 billion, whereas earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) surged 10.4% to €1,096 million. The EBIT margin inched up from 11.7% in HQ 2023 to 11.8% during the first half of 2024.
The adjusted net income, group share rose 6% to €866 million, whereas the free operating cash flow came in at €23 million.
The company reiterated its 2024 annual guidance, saying that organic sales growth for the year should be somewhere between 5% to 6%, whereas the EBIT margin is likely to be between 11.7% to 11.8%.
Although the aeronautics, security and defence branches are expected to keep doing well for the rest of the year, the EBIT margin for the space branch is expected to suffer somewhat due to a lag in the commercial telecommunications sector, as well as the effect of business restructuring costs.
In a statement, Patrice Caine, chief executive officer (CEO) of Thales said: “We once again achieved strong sales growth in the first half of the year, with record orders including three contracts with a unit value in excess of €500 million. This reflects strong demand from our customers and the quality of the Group’s solutions.
“We are continuing to invest to increase our production capacity and support the sustainable growth of our business. We are also accelerating our investments in innovation to strengthen our technological leadership. Other priorities for the year include the continued integration of recent acquisitions Imperva and Cobham Aerospace Communications.”
Thales and Airbus could also be considering merging their space businesses, according to the Financial Times, in order to cement their position in an increasingly competitive space sector. If so, this would be based on the MBDA model, which has combined Britain, France and Italy’s missile systems. It would also go a long way in curbing losses for both Airbus and Thales’ current space divisions.
