Boeing Apache vying for $10 billion Asian chopper market
Boeing Co., Sikorsky, Eurocopter and Bell, the top four helicopter makers, are focused on Asia as 1,000 orders from countries spanning India to Korea are set to make it the fastest growing military-chopper market by 2015.
Tenders in half a dozen nations should produce sales of $10 billion over the next three years, Norbert Ducrot, executive vice president for the Asia-Pacific region at Eurocopter, the world’s No. 1 manufacturer of rotorcraft, said in an interview.
Key bids include naval tenders in Korea and India, for which Sikorsky, a unit of United Technologies Corp., is pitching its Seahawk antisubmarine model, a version of the Black Hawk.
Asian military spending rose 14 percent last year, funded by the world’s fastest-growing regional economy. The helicopter market is surging as nations race to replace aging Western, Soviet and home-grown models, led by emerging powers seeking the means to extend their military reach, according to Craig Caffrey, a defense analyst at IHS Jane’s DS Forecast in London.
“In China and India, the market is being driven by attempts to improve the mobility of their ground forces, which requires the procurement of large quantities of tactical transport helicopters,” said Caffrey, adding that Asia represents “one of the most open and diverse” markets for the aircraft.
While the U.S. will remain the biggest military-helicopter market over the next decade, its share of sales will dip to 38 percent from 50 percent with its exit from Iraq last year and a withdrawal from Afghanistan planned for 2014, according to London-based Visiongain no fax cash loans.
Competition intensified last week in Singapore, with major manufacturers pushing their products at the last major air show before a series of contract announcements begins with an Indian order for 197 light helicopters valued at $1.5 billion.
India, whose existing chopper fleet is dominated by Soviet models, also has a contest under way for 55 naval helicopters, worth $2.2 billion, for which France-based Eurocopter is pitching the NH90 against Sikorsky’s Seahawk and Textron Inc.’s Bell 429.
The south Asian nation is also seeking 22 attack choppers in a tender for which Chicago-based Boeing says its AH-64 Apache, built in Mesa, Ariz., has been selected as preferred bidder over the Russian Mil Mi-28 Havoc, together with 15 heavy-lift models that have attracted proposals from the Boeing Ch-47 Chinook, built in Ridley Park, Pa., and the Mi-26 Halo.
Boeing is offering the Chinook model used in Afghanistan.