Rheinmetall Defence sales surge in Q1

Rheinmetall on 8 May released its financial results for Q1 FY2020, which showed a strong performance despite the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

This performance was reinforced by the growth of the Defence division which saw significant sales increase by 18% compared to the same period in FY2019 to €740 million ($800 million).

Order backlogs also increased by 13% to €10.3 billion.

Overall, Rheinmetall increased consolidated sales by 1.1% to €1.36 billion but the effects of COVID-19 reduced operational earnings from €54 million to €34 million. However, Defence tripled its operating earnings to €29 million.

Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall, said: ‘Our Defence sector has proven robust and resilient under these challenging macroeconomic circumstances and will help us to soften the impact of the crisis at the Group level.’

Papperger added that: ‘This is currently expected to remain the case over the further course of the year, too.’