Éric Trappier, Chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation, presented his Group’s 2019 annual results during a press conference on February 27.

“2019 was uniquely busy for our group, with the delivery of 26 Rafale Export, major advances on the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) around the New Generation Fighter (NGF) which we were designated industrial leader for, the delivery of 40 Falcon and the order intake of 40 Falcon in the context of a difficult market, the ranking as world leader by AIN and Propilot for the support of our business aircraft, and the Falcon 6X program on schedule,” Éric Trappier declared.

He added: “2019 order intake that includes the integrated support contract (RAVEL) amounts EUR 5,693 million, up by 13% compared to 2018, which recorded the order intake of 12 additional Rafale for Qatar.

2019 net sales amounts EUR 7,341 million up by 44% compared to 2018 mainly due to the record number of Rafale deliveries.

The adjusted operating margin is 10.4% (13.2% in 2018 including Safran compensation related to the Silvecrest). This 10.4% operating margin is to be compared to a 9.2% operating margin in 2018 without Safran compensation: the operating margin improvement is mainly explained by the sharp increase of net sales.

The sharp rise of self-financed Research and Development (EUR 527 million in 2019, compared to EUR 392 million in 2018) is explained by the simultaneous development of 2 Falcon programs.

2019 adjusted net result is EUR 814 million, up by 20% (EUR 681 million in 2018), i.e. a net margin of 11.1% of net sales.

This leads to a payout amount of EUR 212 million (i.e. a dividend of 25.4 Euros per share vs. 21.2 Euros per share in 2018), a profit-sharing and incentive plans of EUR 187 million (including a correlated social tax) and a total corporate income tax of EUR 215 million mostly paid in France (EUR 210 million i.e. 98%).

Furthermore in 2019: 

• Acceleration of the implementation of the Group’s transformation plan with the ramp up of the Dassault Aviation / Dassault Systèmes strategic partnership (in the form of the 3DExperience™ collaborative engineering platform), the creation of a Big Data platform, the ongoing deployment of new tools for Industrial Performance management, upgrading and construction of new buildings and industrial rationalization 
• The ramp-up of the “Make in India” policy continued mainly through the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd. in Nagpur 
• Dassault Aviation’s customer service network grew following the acquisition of 3 additional service-center networks (ExecuJet, TAG Europe, and RUAG)
• The Group workforce rose from 11,494 to 12,757 employees

“In 2020, the Group plans to deliver 40 Falcon (iso 2019) and 13 Rafale (vs. 26 in 2019) and lower net sales,” Trappier concluded.