LONDON: Boeing’s (NYSE:BA) first-quarter report comes as it reported more new airplane orders and deliveries during the quarter than its European rival Airbus.
Analysts are expecting Boeing to post a 4% rise in Q1 earnings to $1.83 per share when it announces results. Revenue is seen climbing 10.4% to $22.6 billion.
Earlier this month Airbus said it added 121 aircraft gross orders on the books during the quarter vs. Boeing’s 116. But adjusting for cancellations, Airbus only had 101 vs. Boeing’s 110.
But deliveries are the key metric to watch for in the results as Boeing gets paid for actual deliveries, not orders.
Boeing has said it delivered 184 commercial jets in Q1, with 121 737s, 24 777s and 30 787 Dreamliners, up from 161 total planes a year ago.
Airbus only had 141 deliveries in Q1 as deliveries for its wide-body A330 fell.
Last week Barclays reiterated its overweight rating on Boeing’s stock and raised its price target to 169 from 155.
“Unlike investors, BA management’s focus seems much longer term and more cost/risk/return-focused than we can recall in sometime, perhaps ever,” analyst Carter Copeland wrote in his note. “Lower-risk product decisions made in recent years, combined with new game-changing investments in automation, could point to a much better margin profile than the flattish forecast consensus implies in perpetuity.”
Commercial aerospace is Boeing’s largest money maker but its having issues with its smaller space program.
Last week United Launch Alliance (UAL), Boeing’s joint venture with Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT), unveiled the Vulcan rocket, saying it would replace its Delta and Atlas boosters, and end the dependence on Russian-made engines. But just a few days later UAL said it would stop investment in the new rocket if it wasn’t allowed to use the 29 Russian rocket engines on order that have been held up by U.S. sanctions related to Russia’s invasion of Crimea last year.
On the defense side, Boeing is vying for the new long-range bomber contract from the military that is expected to be announced this summer. If Boeing doesn’t get the contract it maybe forced out of the combat aircraft business.
