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PARIS — Worldwide defense sales fell 3.3 percent in 2011 from a year ago, driven by governments’ spending priorities, weak Western economies, and withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, a report from consultancy Deloitte said.
The decline in defense contrasted with an overall 2.3 percent rise in global aerospace and defense revenues, helped by higher production rates of airliners, the 2011 Global Aerospace & Defense Industry performance wrap-up report showed.
Despite the rise in the headline revenue figure, many key financial results generally fell, “likely because of the predominant weighting of the defense sub-segment,” the report said.
European industry grew by 0.8 percent compared with U.S. industry’s 3.3 percent, a lower performance attributed to a difference in “incentives, management philosophies, and work force practice,” the report said.
Defense companies will find it hard to maintain revenues, never mind grow, based on the ratio of sales to order books, the report
