EADS believes it can knock Boeing off its perch at the top of the aerospace market within 10 years.
With Airbus already leading its US rival in the commercial airliner market, joint chief executives Philippe Camus and Reiner Hertrich say it is only a matter of time before the European company ramps up its defence and spaceflight revenues to overtake Boeing in the industry rankings.
Speaking at a pre-Farnborough briefing near Bath on Saturday, Camus said that, four years after its formation, EADS had completed its integration and was now "entering a new strategic phase which will lead to the true globalisation of EADS".
The company believes it can boost its sales by a quarter to E40 billion by 2007, with earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of 10%. Growth areas will include defence generally, the US homeland security market and the Asia Pacific region, which could expand from just 11% of EADS's market in 2000 to 30% by 2015.
The company also expects big things of the Airbus A380, which enters revenue service in 2006, and its formerly troubled space division, which will start making money for the first time next year. Eurocopter, already market leader in the helicopter market, can consolidate its position further, says Camus.
Success
Hertrich says EADS's integration had been a "European success story which they said could not happen". The company - a merger of the leading French, German and Spanish aerospace entities - had shaken off the negative aspects of its cultural legacies. "Our people now can't just be French or Spanish or German," he says. "We have produced a generation of managers who are truly European."
MURDO MORRISON
Source: Flight Daily News