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German defense contractor Rheinmetall sees unprecedented gains ahead as Europe embarks on a massive military buildup, even after reporting already-strong growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Headquartered in D\u00fcsseldorf, Germany, the company reported 2024 total revenue<\/a> of \u20ac9.8 billion on Wednesday, up 36% from 2023. The defense business led the company\u2019s sales growth last year, surging 50% to \u20ac7.6 billion.\u00a0Additionally, the backlog increased 44% to \u20ac55 billion a new record high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year\u2019s growth was helped by Europe\u2019s continued military aid for Ukraine. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Rheinmetall\u2019s stock price has climbed more than 1,000%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the European Union recently announced plans to increase its defense spending by \u20ac800 billion ($867 billion) as historic US allies seek to take more responsibility for their security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAn era of rearmament has begun in Europe that will demand a lot from all of us,\u201d CEO Armin Papperger said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cHowever, it also brings us at Rheinmetall growth prospects for the coming years that we have never experienced before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For this year, Rheinmetall expects total sales to increase 25%-30% and defense sales to climb 35%-40%.\u00a0While those numbers would fall short of 2024’s, actual sales by the end of the year could turn out to be even bigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rheinmetall noted in its report the outlook does not take into account \u201cgeopolitical developments in recent weeks,\u201d saying updates to its forecasts could come later as requirements of its military customers become clearer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWith a 50% sales growth in the defence business, Rheinmetall is on its way from being a European systems supplier to a global champion,\u201d Papperger said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In recent years, the European leader in munition production invested nearly \u20ac8 billion in new manufacturing facilities, acquisitions, and supply-chain security. In January, Rheinmetall announced<\/a> it acquired a majority share in a Bavarian software developer that specializes in digitizing warfare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to manufacturing missiles and bombs, Rheinmetall also makes tanks, air-defense systems, and autonomous ground vehicles. Most notably, it produces the Panther KF51 main battle tank. A major supplier to Ukraine, Rheinmetall has plants in the war-torn country along with Lithuania, Hungary, and Romania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, the company looks to continue its growth in Germany and is reportedly<\/a> interested in a Volkswagen<\/a> plant in Osnabr\u00fck.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Wednesday, Papperger said the facility would be \u201cvery suitable\u201d for the company\u2019s expansion plans and would be more affordable than building a factory from the ground up.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Papperger cautioned that while there was no concept for Rheinmetall to move onto Volkswagen\u2019s turf, things could still move quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne thing is clear: before I\u2019ll build a new tank factory in Germany, we\u2019ll of course take a look at it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n This story was originally featured on Fortune.com<\/a><\/p>\r\n German defense contractor Rheinmetall sees unprecedented gains ahead as Europe embarks on a massive military buildup, even after reporting already-strong growth. Headquartered in D\u00fcsseldorf, Germany,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":295297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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