IAI Looking for ‘More Big Deals’ in India

(Defense Update) : IAI was the largest display at the Israeli Pavilion at Aero-India 2011. On display were models of special mission aircraft, and full scale models of UAVs, EO payloads, electronic intelligence and COMINT payloads, ground control stations for UAVs, missiles, loitering weapons, and more. An Elta multi-mission radar was also displayed in the outdoor area. Photo: Tamir Eshel, Defense-Update.

In the past two years Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has demonstrated its continued growth momentum. IAI is opening 2011 with a swing- its 2010 reported backlog exceeding $9 billion. India, as one of IAI’s strategic markets, is deriving a substantial part of this growth.
According to Izhak Nissan, IAI CEO, in maintaining this momentum IAI must win more large-scale programs in all its major strategic markets, being the USA, Europe and India. “The future growth of IAI will come from such programs, similar to those we have recently won.”Nissan stated, “Large-scale programs bring together all IAI’s unique attributes – state-of-the-art technology, extensive operational experience, system integration methodology, flexibility to understand the user requirements, backed by performance track record and the long tradition of partnership, are key to our success” said Nissan.
Large programs are indeed the main driver for IAI’s growth. Among the company’s recent gains are, a major sale of the latest Land-Based Barak 8 Air Defense System, sales of the latest versions of Multi-Mission Radars, signal intelligence and electronic warfare systems from Elta Systems and continued sales and development of IAI’s military and commercial satellites. Another success story for IAI in India are UAVs – last month the Indian Navy deployed a second squadron operating Heron and Searcher UAVs, tasked with coastal security and maritime patrol missions. India is the largest operator of IAI UAVs. IAI is seeking to further strengthen its position in India, through winning new customers, more partnerships, extending its proposals through the civil, government and defense sectors. IAI has two ongoing partnerships with Tata and Nova, which are progressing well, the company would like to expand on this successful concept with more initiatives. The rapid growth of IAI’s operations on the Indian market, despite the growing competition, can be attributed to the close and direct relations established, through the successful cooperation with the users, industry and partners, timely delivery of systems, allocating significant work share and fulfilling offset obligations.