Rapid Fire, March 8 2012: EADS Thrives on Commercial Sales

* EADS announced they grew yearly revenue by 7.4% to 49.1 billion euros in 2011 (about $65B). Growth was driven by Airbus Commercial (their best year ever) and Eurocopter (whose revenue was 47% military). The Airbus Military business lost 6.7% from 2010 to 2.5 billion euros, with an order book of 217 aircraft down from 241 with only 5 new net orders. The A400M generated sales of 758M vs 1.04B in the previous year. Astrium (34% defense sales) and Cassidian (92% defense sales) saw smaller topline decreases. EADS overall defense revenue dropped by 6% to 11.6B while the defense backlog dropped by 9% to 52.8B. The group has increased its Euro sales to lower its exposure to currency risk and about half its US revenue in dollars is hedged by local procurement in the same currency. EADS was sitting on about $15B worth of net cash at the end of 2011, lending credence to talks of forthcoming acquisitions. * Northrop Grumman produced a report [PDF] for the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission on Chinese cyber capabilities: “While the modernization of China’s military hardware continues to capture headlines, the rapid development of a comprehensive C4ISR infrastructure, linking platforms, personnel, and […]