5 Biggest Aerospace Companies in the World

In this article, we discuss 5 of the biggest aerospace companies in the world. If you want to see more of the biggest aerospace companies in the world, go directly to 15 Biggest Aerospace Companies in the World.

5. Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC)

2021 Aerospace Revenue: $35.67 billion

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 45

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) is a leading American defense contractor that designs and builds cutting edge aircraft and spacecraft. Some of the company’s aerospace products include the B-2 bomber and the X-47B. Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) also makes state of the art integrated avionics. For 2021, Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) had aerospace revenue of $35.67 billion. LRT Capital Management commented on Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) in a Q2 2022 investor letter,

Based in Virginia, Northrop Grumman is one of the world’s largest defense contractors with annual revenue of more than $30 billion. The company operates in a cozy oligopoly, that after decades of consolidation the US defense market is now controlled by five large companies: The Boeing Company, General Dynamics Corporation, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Northrop Grumman Corporation, and Raytheon Technologies Corporation.

Industry barriers to entry are immense, government procurement cycles are extremely long, and the consolidated industry structure reflects this. This industry structure has allowed Northrop to earn stable mid-teens returns on invested capital (ROIC) and grow earnings per share at a rate of over 13% per year in the past decade, despite a topline that has grown only in-line with inflation.