Lockheed Martin revenue beats, profit to rise in 2018

(Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp reported fourth-quarter revenue on Monday that beat Wall Street estimates, helped by higher sales from the F-35 fighter jet program, while also forecasting a rise in earnings in 2018.

Shares of the U.S. defense contractor rose 2.4 percent to $353.15 in premarket trading.

The U.S. defense contractor took a $1.9 billion charge in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, mainly due to the change in U.S. tax law.

Excluding a deferred non-cash gain of $122 million or 43 cents per share, and the tax charges, Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S calculations showed Lockheed earned $3.87 per share versus analysts estimate of $4.07 per share.

Lockheed gave an adjusted figure for earnings from continuing operations of $4.30 per share.

Net sales rose to $15.14 billion from $13.75 billion a year earlier, beating Wall Street estimates of $14.72 billion.

Adjusted for new accounting standards from Jan. 1, Lockheed said it expects 2018 net sales in the range of $50.00 billion-$51.50 billion and earnings per share of $15.20-$15.50.

Lockheed, like its peers in the United States, is expected to gain from an increase in defense spending under President Donald Trump's administration.

The U.S. Defense Department expects to spend some $391 billion over 15 years to develop and buy 2,456 of the supersonic warplanes.

Lockheed said sales in its aeronautics business, its biggest, grew 11.8 percent to $6.05 billion.

(Reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Patrick Graham)