Photo: A Boxer Skyranger 30 armored vehicle at ILA 2022 / Boevaya mashina, Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
Rheinmetall shares fell as much as 15% in early trading Thursday, CNBC reported, after the German defense giant cut its full-year sales target for the second time since August, citing delayed military contracts.
The company now expects 2026 sales of about 13.2 billion euros, down from a prior range of 13.7 billion to 14.2 billion euros, and an operating margin of about 18.5% instead of 19%. Rheinmetall blamed the revision on delays in the German military’s Arminius Boxer vehicle program, now expected to be commissioned in 2027, and setbacks in artillery ammunition acceptance testing.
The guidance cut landed alongside improving quarterly results: third-quarter sales rose 32% from a year earlier to 3.15 billion euros, operating profit jumped 62% to 553 million euros, and new orders of 2.89 billion euros pushed the backlog to 78 billion euros.
Coming into Thursday, the stock was already down roughly 35% this year, after averaging annual gains of 114% over the prior four years as European governments ramped up military spending. RBC analysts called the announcement “clearly negative” and warned it could feed the debate over whether traditional defense technology is losing ground to newer systems.
For investors, the message is that even record order backlogs do not guarantee smooth delivery: government paperwork and testing schedules, not demand, set the pace.
JBizNews Desk | Global
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