The drone maker’s revenue more than doubled to $642 million as funded backlog climbed 65%, with management pointing to manufacturing expansion and rising U.S. defense demand.
AeroVironment shares surged 19% after the dronemaker easily beat Wall Street’s fiscal fourth-quarter estimates, as investors focused on rapidly rising demand tied to U.S. military modernization and space security efforts. Revenue more than doubled from a year earlier to $642 million, while funded backlog climbed 65% to $1.2 billion. Autonomous systems revenue reached $492 million, topping the $402 million StreetAccount expectation. CEO Wahid Nawabi told analysts the company is scaling manufacturing to keep pace with what he described as unprecedented demand and said the growth opportunity has "never been stronger." AeroVironment also said its BlueHalo and Empirical Systems Aerospace acquisitions contributed $282.3 million in revenue in the quarter. The rally spilled into other drone-linked stocks, with Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, Red Cat and Unusual Machines all advancing.