Boeing share price rises as it posts 25 per cent profit rise as record commercial plane deliveries push up revenue guidance
Shares in aerospace giant Boeing took flight today, after it posted a 25 per cent rise in profits during its third quarter, raising its full-year revenue guidance
The world’s largest passenger jet manufacturer said record commercial deliveries during the quarter had pushed revenues up nine per cent, to $25.8bn (£16.7bn), with 199 planes delivered during the period, including 37 of its flagship 787 Dreamliners.
Earnings in its commercial arm rose to $17.bn, while revenues at its defence, space and security business, which manufactures Chinook helicopters and F-15 jets, as well as satellites, rose to $8.3bn.
The company said the success of its commercial business during the quarter suggested full-year revenues will be $500m higher than originally forecast, falling somewhere between $95bn and $97bn, while core earnings per share will increase to between $7.95 and $8.15, from the $7.70 to $7.90 previously expected.
In June this year the company announced plans to scale back production of its iconic 747 to one a month – a year after it made its 1,500th delivery of the aircraft, the first wide-body aircraft to do so.
President and chief executive Dennis Muilenburg, who took the reins from industry veteran Jim McNerney at the beginning of July, emphasised the company’s commitment to returning cash to shareholders.
The company said it had repurchased 11m shares for $1.5bn during the quarter, reflecting a 25 per cent increase in dividends per share compared with the same period last year.
However, the news also came on the same day a F-18 jet belonging to the US navy crashed in Cambridgeshire, killing its pilot. F-18s were manufactured in the 1980s and early 1990s by McDonnell Douglas, which merged with Boeing in 1997.
Shares in the company were up 1.7 per cent at $141 in lunchtime trading in New York.