Rheinmetall Cuts Its 2026 Sales Guidance to EUR 13.2 Billion as the Bundeswehr's Boxer Arminius Order Slips to 2027
Düsseldorf, 5 November 2026
Key points
- Rheinmetall now expects 2026 sales of about EUR 13.2 billion, against the EUR 13.7–14.2 billion it guided in August, and an operating margin of about 18.5 per cent instead of about 19 per cent; the company calls the new margin stable, and 18.5 per cent is what it earned in 2025
- It gives two causes: Arminius, the Bundeswehr's Boxer project, is in the final phase of negotiations and can only be placed next year, and acceptance of production lots of artillery ammunition is expected to run late. Klaus Neumann, the chief financial officer, told analysts the delays lay solely with processes on the customer's side and that he expects Arminius in the first quarter of 2027, dpa-AFX reports
- Nine-month sales rose 38 per cent to EUR 8.4 billion, 41.3 per cent of them in Germany; nomination, Rheinmetall's measure of new orders plus new framework contracts, was EUR 19.1 billion; the backlog stood at EUR 78.0 billion at 30 September, against EUR 80.5 billion at 30 June
- Operating free cash flow was minus EUR 1,698 million after nine months, which the company attributes to the previous year's high customer advances and to inventory built for the growth it expects
Rheinmetall has cut its 2026 sales guidance for the second time this year, and both times the first cause it names is a German programme: in August the cancelled F126 frigate, now a Boxer order Berlin has not yet placed.
German trade press had reported on 2 November that the firm order, about 1,800 Boxers for slightly more than EUR 20 billion including VAT, would not come before February 2027. In August Armin Papperger, the chief executive, put Rheinmetall's share of an initial Arminius order at about EUR 12.4 billion, Reuters reports. Nine-month orders do not show the slip: Vehicle Systems' nomination quadrupled to EUR 7.9 billion on the second Puma lot and Romania's 298 Lynx, without Arminius. The third quarter alone does: orders of EUR 2.89 billion came in below the quarter's sales of EUR 3.15 billion, Reuters reports. Weapon and Ammunition, the segment whose artillery lots are late, booked EUR 4.5 billion, 6 per cent less than a year earlier.
The new guidance leaves Rheinmetall's 2026 with no margin expansion and a slower last quarter. Subtracting nine-month sales of EUR 8.38 billion from EUR 13.2 billion leaves about EUR 4.8 billion for the fourth quarter, some 24 per cent above the EUR 3.9 billion of the same quarter in 2025, against 38 per cent growth over the first nine months. The margin Rheinmetall now guides is the one it earned last year. The August cut, which the half-year dispatch read as a disclosure of dependence on one customer, removed EUR 300 million; this one, which Signal No. 183 recorded, removes between EUR 0.5 and 1 billion, naming the Boxer order first and late acceptance of artillery ammunition second. Papperger's share of about EUR 12.4 billion, which hartpunkt reports may come in about a tenth lower, would equal well over half of the group's nine-month nomination; placed in the first quarter, as Neumann expects, it would dominate 2027's order intake as its slip has shaped 2026's sales. Rheinmetall gives its 2027 view at a capital markets day on 26 and 27 November.
Related · Rheinmetall's 2026 guidance and its German programmes
