MBDA saw another strong year of trading performance in 2018, recording a further EUR 4.0 billion in orders that brought the company's order book up to a record total of EUR 17.4 billion. Revenue was also slightly ahead year-on-year to EUR 3.2 billion.

MBDA's MMP - Missile Moyenne Portée (Picture source: Army Recognition)

Strong performance in its home markets saw MBDA's domestic order intake of EUR2.5 billion exceed that from exports at EUR1.5 billion. MBDA CEO Antoine Bouvier said: "Our strong financial and, in particular, our domestic performance is reflective of the strategic importance of the missile sector to Europe's nations. This can only be achieved by the right combination of national programmes and by co-operation across Europe's nations, as without this balance, Europe will lack the critical size of its defence technological and industrial base to autonomously develop the technologies necessary for the operational performance of our armed forces."

Significant domestic orders in 2018 included a contract from the French DGA to develop the next generation of the MICA air-to-air missile, the renewal of in-service support for the Aster missile across France, Italy and the UK, upgrade and maintenance work on Taurus in Spain, among others. Major export orders included the weaponisation of Eurofighter Typhoon fighter aircraft and NH90 helicopters ordered by Qatar, as well as further export orders of Taurus, MMP and Mistral.

Important domestic milestones in 2018 that paved the way for future successes include the creation of a joint venture to pursue the next generation Integrated Air and Missile Defence System (TLVS) for Germany.

The company took steps in 2018 to secure European sovereignty in its supply chain, including the joint purchase, together with Soitec of France, of Dolphin Integration, a specialist of System on Chip (SoC) solutions for low power computing applications.

The past year also saw MBDA deliver vital new operational capabilities to its armed forces customers, including: the operational deployment of MMP with the French Army; the entry into service of Sea Ceptor with the Royal Navy and major progress on the Land Ceptor system for the British Army; the first firing trials of the Marte ER anti-ship missile; and the entry into service of Meteor, Storm Shadow and Brimstone onto the Eurofighter. 2018 also saw MMP chosen as the missile of reference for the development of a Beyond Line Of Sight capability sovereign to Europe through the sharing of common doctrine, training, and interoperability among European forces under the new Permanent Structured Cooperation framework of the European Union.