Russian Helicopters’ revenue grows

Еxport orders and the weak national currency helped Russian Helicopters increase its revenue 29.5% year-on-year in 2015, to 220 billion rubles ($3.34 billion at the current exchange rate), despite a reduction in deliveries. The holding company’s EBITDA grew 39.5% to 65.6 billion rubles, and its net profit doubled, reaching 42.1 billion roubles. Russian Helicopters delivered 212 aircraft last year, or 59 fewer than in 2014. Its firm backlog shrank 9.5% to 494 aircraft. “Such good [financial] results were certainly aided by the ruble’s depreciation and also by the fact that our backlog primarily consists of export orders, which are denominated in foreign currencies,” CEO Alexander Mikheev commented, adding that the drop in deliveries was due to the global market glut. Mikheev explained that the global reduction in demand for helicopters was caused by the shrinkage of the potential customers’ military budgets: “We expect this process to continue in the long run. Because of this, and taking into account the difficult foreign political situation, we are fairly conservative in our appraisals of the future sales [of military helicopters], and are hoping to begin selling more civilian aircraft.” The company’s 2015 financial report says that its primary clients in the past three years have been Russian government agencies, including the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Defense Ministry, the Emergencies Ministry, and the Interior Ministry. A total of 28.7% of Russian Helicopters’ revenues were generated by sales within Russia. The company’s second largest market was Asia (33.9%), followed by Africa (23.9%). Russian helicopter delivered aircraft to 17 countries last year. Mikheev says now that demand is shrinking, the company is paying more attention to aftersale support and MRO services, which accounted for 17.4% of its revenue in 2015 (38.3 billion rubles), compared to 12.7% in 2014 and 11.1% in 2013.