Dassault sees higher deliveries, lower revenue in 2016

PARIS (Reuters) - Dassault Aviation said it expected to deliver more Falcon business jets to customers this year after missing its target for 2015, but forecast a decline in full-year revenue.

The company said it delivered 55 Falcons last year, short of its target of 65. Orders fell by half to 45 in a difficult competitive environment but it is targeting around 60 deliveries this year.

Despite expectations for higher deliveries this year, Dassault said revenue would fall after 2015 was boosted by a contract to upgrade Mirage 2000 jets for India.

"We will ... need to increase our flexibility in order to improve our responsiveness to changes in the market, which is more and more unpredictable in an increasingly uncertain world," Dassault said in a statement on Thursday.

The company delivered eight Rafale fighter jets last year, including three to Egypt, and forecast nine deliveries in 2016. This would drop to just four in 2017 before rising again in 2018, Chief Executive Eric Trappier said.

Last year was marked by long-awaited export successes for the Rafale, with 24 orders for both Egypt and Qatar, which meant overall order intake rose to 9.9 billion euros ($10.9 billion) from 4.6 billion in 2014 despite the weakness in Falcon demand.

The total order backlog rose by almost half to 14.2 billion euros, Dassault said.

The company said it would continue this year to work on signing a deal to sell 36 Rafales to India as it seeks to underpin the ramp-up of fighter jet production. Trappier said it was preparing for a possible additional sale of 90 Rafales to India.

On the business jet side, Dassault said it expected some cancellations for its future Falcon 5X after a three-year delay in engine certification because of difficulties in the development of the SilverCrest power plant led it to push back first deliveries to 2020.

Shares in Dassault Aviation were 1.6 percent lower at 1,021.1 euros by 0836 GMT. The stock is down about 11 percent this year.

($1 = 0.9113 euros)

(Reporting by James Regan and Cyril Altmeyer; Editing by Keith Weir)