(News Bulletin 247) – Airbus unveiled better-than-expected quarterly results on Thursday thanks to higher commercial aircraft deliveries, but unveiled 2023 targets that fell short of analysts’ expectations.

In the fourth quarter, the European aerospace and defense giant posted adjusted operating profit (Ebit) up 43% to 2.15 billion euros.

For comparison, analysts on average expected an adjusted Ebit of 1.95 billion euros.

Its net profit increased by 6% to 1.68 billion euros over the last three months of the year, for a turnover up 21% to 20.64 billion euros.

The group specifies that it delivered 661 commercial aircraft over the whole of the 2022 financial year, compared with 611 aircraft in 2021.

For 2023, Airbus says it is targeting the delivery of 720 civil aircraft, as well as an adjusted Ebit of six billion euros, for a free cash flow (FCF) of three billion euros.

This latest forecast turns out to be well below the consensus, which predicted an FCF of around 4.5 billion euros this year.

In a note of reaction, however, Stifel analysts believe that these performances are “reassuring” in view of the supply difficulties currently affecting the industry sector.

Following this publication, the title Airbus clearly outperformed the market Thursday morning, posting a gain of more than 3% around 9:45 am while the CAC 40 index took 0.7% at the same time.

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