AeroVironment Switchblade 600 Drone
Courtesy: AeroVironment
WASHINGTON — Drone manufacturer AeroVironment’s shares rallied 20% on Wednesday on the back of better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results.
Wednesday’s gain — AeroVironment’s biggest since January 2021 — put the refill 34% for 2023.
The stock closed at $115.05 on Wednesday.
“The long run of defense and warfare really is about unmanned systems and we’re on the forefront of that,” AeroVironment CEO Wahid Nawabi said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell Time beyond regulation” Wednesday.
The firm currently has eight different systems supporting Ukraine’s fight, Nawabi added.
The Virginia-based weapons manufacturer earned $1 per share on revenue of $152 million. Analysts polled by LSEG expected a profit of 26 cents per share on revenue of $129 million.
Wahid Nawabi, CEO, AeroVironment, Sept. 6, 2023.
Scott Mlyn | CNBC
The outcomes led Baird analyst Peter Arment to upgrade the stock to outperform. He also hiked his price goal to $128 from $95 per share, implying upside of greater than 34% from Tuesday’s close. Adoption of AeroVironment’s Switchblade drone will probably be a key driver for the corporate, he said.
“We expect continued order flow for Switchblade especially recent variants, as special operation forces construct up initial inventory levels before this system enters a more regular state of volume once it’s a program of record. This system of record date was established in FY20.”
Within the weeks following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Pentagon announced its decision to equip Kyiv with 100 of AeroVironment’s Switchblade drones.
The deployment of the single-use weapon, dubbed a “kamikaze drone,” to the fight in Ukraine could also be one of the crucial significant uses of it in combat. It will not be clear how often the U.S. military has utilized the Switchblade drone in theater.
AeroVironment makes the Switchblade 300 and the 600; each are equipped with cameras, navigation systems and guided explosives. The weapons will be programmed to routinely strike targets which are miles away or can loiter above a goal until engaged by an operator to attack.
The 300 variant is designed to strike small targets, weighs a little bit greater than 5 kilos and has a spread of 10 miles. The 600 version of the weapon is designed to destroy tanks and other armored vehicles. It weighs barely greater than 120 kilos and has a spread of greater than 40 miles.
The system is taken into account cheaper than the mixture of firing a Lockheed Martin Hellfire missile from General Atomics’ MQ-9 Reaper drone. Each single-use Switchblade 300 is estimated to cost $6,000, based on an NBC News report.
The U.S. has unleashed a war chest value greater than $43.2 billion for Ukraine within the
Fred Imbert contributed reporting from CNBC’s global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, Recent Jersey.
