Rolls-Royce powers on ‘with pace and intensity’ as profits double

Rolls-Royce doubled its profits in the first six months of this year thanks to an ongoing transformation programme.

The engineering giant, which has its civil aerospace and defence divisions in Derby, said that in the six months to 30 June it saw underlying operating profit rise from £0.5 billion to £1.1 billion, compared to the same period last year.

The company also reported that revenues had increased – up to almost £8.2 billion from £6.9 billion.

On the back of that performance, the company has raised its full-year guidance and expects full-year profits to come in between £2.1 billion and £2.3 billion.

Tufan Erginbilgic, Rolls-Royce’s chief executive, said: “Our transformation of Rolls-Royce into a high-performing, competitive, resilient and growing business is proceeding with pace and intensity.

“Our strong first half results reflect the continued delivery of our strategic initiatives and a relentless focus on commercial optimisation and cost efficiencies across the group.

“These results and our increased financial resilience give us the confidence to raise our 2024 guidance and reinstate shareholder distributions in respect of the full year 2024 results.”

Rolls-Royce’s civil aerospace division in Sinfin designs, develops, tests and builds a range of Trent aero engines for commercial passenger aircraft.

In its half-year results, the firm said that the Trent XWB-97 was its best-selling engine with 108 new orders placed.

Rolls-Royce also revealed that flight testing was due to start for the Trent 1000 TEN HPT blade – a component that will more than double the time on wing of the Trent 1000 TEN engine.

The firm has also completed the design of further improvements for the Trent 1000 and Trent 7000, which will deliver an incremental 25% to 30% time on wing benefit by the end of 2025.

And it has also tested improvements for the Trent XWB-84 that will further improve the fuel burn efficiency of this best-in-class engine.

Earlier this year, Rolls-Royce announced it was investing £55 million in its assembly, test and shop visit capacity at Derby, and at its German base in Dahlewitz.

More than 300 jobs will be created – of which 200 will be in Derby.

In its half-year results, Rolls-Royce said: “It will allow us to deliver around 40% additional new engines per year from 2025 compared to 2023, with increased capacity to support rising aftermarket volumes.”