Thales first-quarter orders fall, reaffirms 2016 targets
PARIS (Reuters) - France's Thales reported a drop in orders in the first quarter, suffering from a weak comparison after booking the sale of Rafale warplanes to Egypt a year earlier, but reaffirmed its targets for 2016 on Wednesday.
Europe's largest defence electronics group, which makes radar for the Dassault Aviation Rafale and systems for civil jets, said its order intake fell 18 percent to 2.312 billion euros (1.8 billion pounds) as revenue rose 6.1 percent to 2.732 billion.
Thales expects orders to fall this year after a record 2015 but to remain near 2013-14 levels. It aims to win business worth 1 billion euros for sonar and communications systems in connection with the sale of submarines to Australia built by France's DCNS, in which it owns 35 percent.
(Reporting by Tim Hepher and Cyril Altmeyer; Editing by James Regan)
