Summary of Saab’s press conference at air show
Monday saw the start of the world’s largets air show, Farnborough International Air Show, outside London. Saab’s participation includes a press conference with CEO Åke Svensson on Monday morning.
Svensson introduced his presentation at the press conference by emphasizing the breadth of Saab, quoting important orders received within Saab’s three business segments; Thailand’s Gripen order, the order for the AT4 and Carl-Gustaf anti-tank systems for USA, Giraffe surveillance radar system from the United Kingdom, and the order for command & control systems for Australia’s new amphibious vessels at the end of 2007.
He continued by highlighting three important events during the year that clearly signal Saab’s future potential. Svensson pointed out the uniqueness of a company, which in the space of a few months is able to present to the world market and fly systems as varied as the demonstrator version of Gripen and the airborne surveillance system Saab 2000 ERIEYE AEW&C. Thirdly Åke Svensson talked about the investment that Saab is making within the area of civil security. A new business unit, Saab Security, was created on 1st July and Saab has already secured strategically important orders from infrastructural facilities in Sweden, such as nuclear power plants, ports and airports.
The importance of partnerships in different ventures was a feature of Saab’s presence at the Farnborough International Air show. In the Gripen demonstrator programme, Saab has gathered a number of leading aircraft companies as risk sharing partners, and the company is itself involved as a sub-contractor and risk sharing partner for Airbus and Boeing. Saab is also an international partner in different development programmes. Åke Svensson referred to the company’s leading role in the Neuron programme and a number of international missile programmes as examples. Saab has also taken a leading role within international research and development programmes directed at environmental problems, for instance. Åke Svensson mentioned Saab’s participation in the EU project Clean Sky and the Nordic collaboration, Nordic Climate Cluster.
In his conclusion, Åke Svensson stated that Saab’s future will be heavily influenced by Gripen’s export success, as interest in Gripen remains strong. At present, there are binding Gripen tenders for Denmark, Norway, India, Romania and Switzerland. In addition, Saab has responded to, or is working on responses to requests for information of differing degrees from Bulgaria, Croatia, Brazil and the Netherlands. Saab is also marketing Gripen in several other countries. Åke Svensson reiterated the company’s business objective of selling at least 200 aircraft on the world market.
The presentation is available as a pdf file on Saabs web site, www.saabgroup.com.
Saab serves the global market with world-leading products, services and solutions ranging from military defence to civil security. Saab has operations and employees on all continents and constantly develops, adopts and improves new technology to meet customers’ changing needs.
For further information, please contact:
Toni Eriksson, Acting Press secretary, Saab AB
Telephone: +46 (0)734-180 018
www.saabgroup.com
The information is that which Saab AB is required to declare by the Securities Business Act and/or the Financial instruments Trading Act. The information was submitted for publication on 14 July at 10.30.