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Saab AB (publ)
Saab makes fighter jets, submarines, missiles, radar, and other defence and security products for governments and militaries.
Saab is a Swedish defence company that builds the things countries buy when they want to protect themselves. Its most famous product is the Gripen fighter jet, a small single-engine warplane designed to be cheap to fly, easy to maintain, and able to take off from short stretches of ordinary road. That last trick matters: if a runway gets bombed, a Gripen can still operate from a highway. Saab also makes submarines, surface ships, missiles, radar systems, and command-and-control software, and it sells sensors and systems for civil security too, such as monitoring and surveillance gear for governments and agencies.
The customer is almost always a government, usually a defence ministry, and the sale is rarely quick. A fighter jet deal can take years of talks, trials, and political bargaining before a contract is signed, and then years more to build and deliver. That makes Saab's revenue lumpy and slow-moving. Its competitors are the giants of the industry, such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing in the United States and BAE Systems and Dassault Aviation in Europe. Saab wins when a country wants capable equipment without American or French strings attached, or when it wants a smaller, cheaper jet than the big American fighters. The business splits roughly into three areas. Aeronautics builds the Gripen and related aircraft work. Dynamics makes missiles, torpedoes, and underwater weapons, and it also makes the Carl-Gustaf recoilless rifle, a shoulder-fired weapon that has sold widely and is used by many armies. Surveillance covers radar, electronic warfare, and command systems, and Kockums builds submarines and naval ships. Saab also has a smaller segment for training and simulation services.
What changed the story recently is Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. European defence budgets jumped, and orders poured in. Saab has been expanding capacity, hiring, and investing in production to keep up, and the order backlog has grown sharply. The company pays a dividend and has bought back shares, and it has been spending on factories and tooling to meet demand. Its deep vulnerability is the same as its strength: it depends on government budgets and political decisions it does not control. But for now, the phones are ringing, and Saab is one of the clearest winners of Europe's rearmament.
Saved answer · last researched 12 Nov 2026