Editor's Note: The figures in the second to last paragraph that break out military, civil and space sales have been corrected.

PARIS — Sofradir sees the US as a large and highly competitive market, but one in which pragmatism rules, said Philippe Bensussan, chairman of the French company, which specializes in military and civil infrared (IR) detectors.

"The US is the largest market and a difficult one," he said last week. "But if the US needs, they buy. The US is highly pragmatic. We all struggle but there are long-term contracts to be won."

Sofradir designs and makes cooled and uncooled IR detectors, used in night-vision goggles, IR cameras and targeting equipment.

For the recent French weapons sale to Egypt, Sofradir sensors will be fitted to all the missiles which will arm the Rafale fighter jets, namely Mica, Scalp cruise weapons and Armement Air-Sol Modulaire (AASM), a powered smart bomb, Bensussan said.

Sofradir EC, based in Fairfield, New Jersey, allows the French parent company to compete in the US with products adapted to meet US requirements.

"We have a competitive advantage as a US industrial client can select Sofradir rather than a supplier which is part of a rival American group," Bensussan said. "But our market share in the US market is not growing as fast as expected."

DRS, Rockwell and Raytheon are the main US competitors, according to said a 2011 research note from Hélène Masson, senior research fellow at think tank Fondation pour la Récherche Stratégique. The major foreign competitors are AIM in Germany, Selex in Britain and SCD in Israel.

"IR detection represents a strategic defense capability which has attracted large government spending over several decades both in Europe but also mainly across the Atlantic," the note said.

Sofradir is key to MBDA, and the two companies rely on each other in an industrial interdependence of prime contractor and its supply chain, Masson said April 9. The former supplies the sensors that allow the missiles to see and hit their targets, while the latter is the major client for the IR components, she said.

A builder of opto-electronics also allows France to exercise a form of industrial sovereignty as Paris can avoid relying on a foreign supplier for a critical missile component, she said.

Sofradir has opened a development and production center at Palaiseau on the Saclay technology park on the edge of Paristhe capital, and the facility is due to be fully operational soon, Bensussan said.

Engineers from Safran's Sagem are due to arrive next month, while personnel from Thales arrived at the end of 2014.

"The integration is going ahead," he said.

Sagem and Thales are the 50-50 owners of Sofradir and agreed to transfer their respective key IR technologies to the joint venture.

That transfer of know-how to Sofradir is a consolidation step at the component level, while the prime contractors remain separate and independent, Masson said.

Sofradir is outperforming the IR market, taking share from competitors in a narrow and highly specialized sector, Bensussan said.

The company grew increased 2014 sales to €190 million (US $206 million) compared to with a little more than €180 million in the previous year. Sofradir The company increased profit but no details were disclosed.

Military accounts for about 5080 percent of sales, 30 percent civil and 20 percent space. , with the inverse for the ULIS subsidiary. More than half of sales come from France and Europe, and Sofradir seeks to expand export sales.

The market calls for IR technology that is smaller, higher-resolution, easy to use, and uses less power.

Email: ptran@defensenews.com

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