NEW YORK: Boeing Company said its third quarter profits more than doubled, but it could not meet forecasts as revenue at its defence unit came down. The earnings rose to $1.01 billion from $456 million in the corresponding previous year quarter.
The announcement caused a fall in the company's stock prices by $1.76 or 2.6 per cent, to close at $65.21 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The company's revenue fell by 4 per cent to $12.63 billion, caused by an 11 per cent slide in its defence unit's sales. The company maintained that this was due to the sale of Rocketdyne and fewer deliveries of planes like the C-17 military transport.
The government had decided to shift a major portion of a secretive work relating to satellite imaging to Lockheed Martin Corp., which led to a 14 per cent reduction in network systems unit revenues. This had added $150 million to its cost estimates, Boeing's chief financial officer James Bell said.
The company, however, raised its earnings-per-share outlook for the full year to between $2.95 and $3.05 a share, and hiked its 2006 forecast to $3.10 to $3.30 a share.
Revenue from the commercial aircraft unit rose 6 per cent though deliveries fell 7 per cent due to a four-week strike by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The company claimed the strike reduced earnings in the quarter by 27 cents a share. It cut down its delivery by 21 planes and lowered its expected fourth-quarter deliveries by an additional nine for a full-year delivery total of 290, down from the 320 targeted earlier. The strike caused the company to lower its estimate for 2005 revenue to $55 billion.
New chief executive James McNerney said the business was still on track. "The first thing to recognise is that we haven't lost an order from the strike. We could be accused of being conservative for next year."
McNerney said he was confident the new energy-efficient 787 Dreamliner jet, designed to carry passengers point-to-point, would give the company a big advantage over Airbus.
