Obviously, Guillaume Faury, wanted to impress. On the occasion of a “commercial update” held in Paris this Wednesday, June 18, outside the Bourget 2025 Fair, Airbus executive president spoke about his company’s defense activities.
“In security, it is interesting to have certain figures in mind,” said the leader. “Airbus is the first European Union Defense Company”, but “in terms of billing, we are the eleventh largest actor in defense of the world, we are not in the Top 10,” Guillaume Faury continued.
Airbus defense activities were revenues in 2024 to 12.36 billion euros, which represents 17.8% of the total.
According to figures from the International Peace Research Institute of Stockholm (Sipri) dating from 2023, Airbus was in the twelfth in the world of military weapons and services producers. This classification was dominated by Americans. Lockheed Martin is the first ($ 60.8 billion) ahead of RTX (40.66 billion), Northrop Grumman ($ 35.57 billion), Boeing ($ 31.1 billion) and Dynamics General ($ 30.2 billion).
Lockheed Martin is number one
How to explain such difference? Guillaume Faury recalled that the differences in defense spending between Europeans and Americans were vertiginous.
“We are not among the 10 main because the amount of money spent by Europeans is very small compared to that of the United States. The expenses of the European Union defense teams represent approximately 20% of those of the United States and most European purchases are made outside Europe,” said Guillaume Faury.
However, the situation should change. This year, several countries have announced their intention to massively increase defense expense in Europe. Germany in particular. Several members of the German executive spoke of a 5% target of the gross domestic product, while the Germanic country reached 2% so far. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, spoke a rate of 3.5%.
This reversal accelerated if it is not caused by American foreign policy. Donald Trump has clearly expressed his willingness to guarantee the security of Europe and called on Europeans to assume more.
“We have noticed a clear change in the paradigm in Europe in terms of defense expense. This change was caused by the risk of seeing the United States withdraw from Ukraine in the current conflict and the feeling that the protection granted to Europe is threatened, especially in the context of a possible conflict with Russia,” said Jefferies Bank in March.
Guillaume Faury judges that Europe “is in turn.” “We have spoken in Europe to increase defense budgets, this is happening. And significantly. Europe is organizing to spend more money in Europe, buy less abroad and, more intelligently, that is, more together,” the manager developed.
Source: BFM TV
