Thales announced at the end of March that it had achieved a 36% increase in order intake performance compared to the previous year – an achievement the company credits largely to military aerospace sales in emerging markets.
The company is responsible for some 25% of the systems on the Dassault Aviation Rafale multirole fighter, which so far this year has received two international orders from Egypt and Qatar.
“Aerospace is important – one of the elements that has justified that performance in terms of order intake is the Rafale contract in Egypt, which is a sign of growth in an emerging country,” Gil Michielin, the new head of avionics for Thales told media ahead of the Paris air show. “The recent Rafale sales are good news for us.”
“We strongly believe that emerging countries are going to continue to feed our growth in coming years,” he continues, noting that by 2017-2018, 35-40% of sales for Thales will come from emerging markets, including India, China and the Middle East, on both the military and commercial sides.
Additionally, Thales recorded a 4% improvement in its turnover in comparison to the previous year, which Michielin says is a “good sign of the health of the company”.
“We are confirming our forecast for the end of the year, which should deliver an improvement in the range of 15% in comparison to last year’s performance,” he notes. “We think that 2015 will be the third year in a row that the group will see significant growth in terms of order intake, mainly supported by our growth in emerging militaries.”
Dassault Aviation
The company’s other achievements in the military domain include the sale of a flight management system for the US Army’s Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, which is the first US order of this type of system to a European company, according to Michielin. Deliveries have started on a potential order for up to 750 systems, and are being carried out under an upgrade contract awarded to Northrop Grumman.
The company also provides its Scorpion helmet-mounted display (HMD) for the Lockheed Martin F-16, Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II and Lockheed Martin C-130, and was selected alongside Raytheon in 2013 to provide a variation of Scorpion for the US Army’s Common HMD programme.
Furthermore, Michielin says announcements by commercial aircraft manufacturers to further increase aircraft production rates are good news for companies like Thales, while the “more and more demanding” requirements by airlines in terms of advanced new aircraft is also driving sales in the civil sector.
Thales also expects to see double-digit growth in the in-flight entertainment market in the future – especially in the USA, where it is involved in improving the quality of IFE on regional flights with live TV streaming.
Source: Flight International
