Britain's Rolls-Royce said annual profit more than doubled last year, beating consensus, and it forecast a further jump in 2024 as aircrafts powered by its engines fly more, defence orders flow and data centre demand rises.
Rolls, which powers ships and submarines and makes power generation systems as well as engines for big commercial aircraft, has delivered strong growth under Tufan Erginbilgic, the former BP executive who took the helm a year ago.
"We are unlocking our full potential as a high-performing, competitive, resilient, and growing Rolls-Royce," he said in a statement today.
The profit improvement was partly driven by cost savings put in place by Erginbilgic and his pricing strategy which is aimed at making Britain's biggest engineering name a higher margin business.
Last year's group underlying operating profit came in at £1.6 billion, well ahead of an analyst forecast of £1.4 billion and its own guidance of £1.2-1.4 billion and compared to the £652m it made in 2022.
For this year, Rolls forecast underlying operating profit would rise by at least 6%, predicting a range of between £1.7 billion and £2 billion, compared to the current consensus forecast of £1.7 billion.
Over the course of 2023, shares in Rolls-Royce rocketed over 200%, making it the top performer in Britain's FTSE index, helped by a profit upgrade in July and an announcement in November that it could quadruple profit by 2027.
