MBDA booked 9.9 billion euros ($10 billion) of orders in 2023, up from 5.1 billion in 2021, the year before Russia's invasion, its president Eric Beranger said at a press conference.

About 70 percent of these orders involved anti-air missiles such as Mistral, CAMM, Mica, and Aster.

Two of last year's orders were over a billion euros. Italy and France entered a joint order for close to 700 Aster missiles for its naval and ground forces, and Poland is spending 2.2 billion euros for 44 launchers and several hundred CAMM anti-air missiles.

MBDA, the world's second largest missile maker, is held by Airbus (37.5 percent), Britain's BAE Systems (37.5 percent) and Italy's Leonardo (25 percent).

Its order book stood at 28 billion euros at the end of last year. Its sales for the year rose 7 percent to 4.5 billion euros.

Beranger said the company is seeking to speed up its production, despite "high tension" in its supply chains.

He said production of the Mistral, which has a range of up to 8 kilometres (5 miles), has increased to 20 a month from 10 in August 2022 and should hit 40 by 2025.

"The big change since February 2022 is that brutally, time matters," he said.

mra/gv/rl

Airbus Group

BAE SYSTEMS