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Heckler & Koch: HK433 assault rifle
Photo: Marijan Murat/ DPA
The armaments company Heckler & Koch has done significantly more business and increased its profits with assault rifles and other handguns.
The company announced at its annual general meeting in Oberndorf that sales had increased by around nine percent to EUR 156.1 million in the first half of the year.
Profits even skyrocketed by around 40 percent to 16 million euros.
CEO Jens Bodo Koch cited more efficient work processes as one reason for the better figures.
In the second half of the year, however, growth will "normalize" due to increased raw material costs.
Repeat orders from Northern and Eastern Europe
As with other weapons manufacturers, the consequences of the Ukraine war caused additional orders for the Black Forest company.
Existing customers from Northern and Eastern Europe have been reordering since February, said Koch, without naming any countries.
What is known, however, is that Heckler & Koch has framework agreements for assault rifles with Norway, Lithuania and Latvia.
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However: War-related repeat orders are not noticeable in sales until autumn at the earliest.
The company almost certainly has a major federal order for 120,000 assault rifles of a new model to replace the G36.
After a legal dispute, competitor CG Haenel lost out.
In order for Heckler & Koch to get the order, the approval of the budget committee of the Bundestag is still missing - that is very likely.
After the production of test weapons and a subsequent testing phase in the troops, the delivery of the first mass-produced new assault rifles is expected at the end of 2024.
The gradual introduction will take several years.
Heckler & Koch is the largest German manufacturer of so-called small arms - meaning weapons that you can carry alone, i.e. assault rifles, machine guns, pistols and grenade launchers.
Competitors include CG Haenel from Thuringia, Beretta from Italy, Sig Sauer from the USA, FN Herstal from Belgium and the Czech company CZG, which took over the US company Colt in 2021.
mamk/dpa
