Rheinmetall Targets €50 Billion in Sales by 2030

(L-R) Boris Pistorius, Germany’s Defence Minister, Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall AG, and Sébastien Lecornu, France’s Defence Minister, stand in front of a Czech Leopard 2 A4 main battle tank during a visit to the Rheinmetall plant, amid the Franco-German MGCS tank project | File Photo: Michael Matthey/dpa

Düsseldorf: Germany’s largest defence contractor believes it is on track to increase its turnover fivefold within six years.

“We want to be at around €50 billion in 2030,” said CEO Armin Papperger to an audience of financial analysts in eastern Germany. “We want to be bigger and have better figures,” he said.

In 2024, Rheinmetall achieved annual sales of €9.8 billion ($11.4 billion). In 2021, before Russia’s major attack on Ukraine, the figure was around €5.7 billion.

As a result of the war in Ukraine, Rheinmetall is receiving significantly more orders for artillery, ammunition, air defence and tanks.

Rheinmetall supplies both Ukraine directly and NATO countries, which are restocking and modernising military equipment to prepare for potential Russian aggression.

Speaking at a presentation in Unterlüss during the company’s Capital Markets Day, Papperger emphasised that a possible peace agreement in Ukraine or a freeze in the conflict would not halt Rheinmetall’s upswing.

NATO countries are determined to invest significantly more in their armies than in the past, and the demand for military equipment will remain high for a long time to come, he said.

Rheinmetall is not only an arms manufacturer, it also makes car parts. This side of the business is struggling, and is up for sale. Papperger said that by the middle of next year at the latest Rheinmetall will be purely an armaments company.