Germany’s largest arms company Rheinmetall wants to significantly accelerate its growth course this year. As the company announced in Düsseldorf, sales rose last year by 12 percent to around 7.2 billion euros and net profit rose by nine percent to 0.6 billion euros.
The goal of generating sales of at least 7.4 billion euros in 2023 was missed – a circumstance that the company justified with projects that have been postponed into the current year. In 2024, Rheinmetall is now targeting a sales volume “in the order of 10 billion euros” – that would be a significantly larger increase than in 2023.
Rheinmetall sells tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft defense, military trucks and ammunition. The administrative headquarters is in Düsseldorf and the largest factory is in Unterlüß, Lower Saxony. The growth driver is the sharp increase in demand after the start of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine around two years ago.
Since then, NATO states have made a lot of money available to bring their military into shape. However, it will take time for these government projects to result in concrete, long-term contracts and for money to flow. Separate from the replenishment and modernization of the NATO armories, Rheinmetall also produces military goods for Ukraine, for which the company is paid by the federal government.
How good the gunsmiths’ business prospects are can also be seen in the order backlog as of December 31, 2023: This stock shot up from 26.6 billion euros to 38.3 billion euros within a year, making it higher than ever before the company’s history.