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(Alliance News) - Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC on Thursday said it made a strong start to 2024, despite continued industry-wide supply chain challenges as it continues its transformation with "pace and intensity".
Shares in Rolls-Royce were up 0.1% to 428.60 pence in London early Thursday. The wider FTSE 100 index was down 0.2%.
In a trading update to April 30, ahead of the company's annual general meeting on Thursday, Chief Executive Tufan Erginbilgic said the strong start to the year "builds on our record performance in 2023 and provides further confidence in our guidance for 2024".
"Our work to transform Rolls-Royce into a high-performing, competitive, resilient and growing business is continuing with pace and intensity," he added.
"We are driving growth, delivering contractual improvements and improved margins, unlocking efficiencies and creating value across the group."
Rolls-Royce said full year 2024 guidance is unchanged, with a broadly balanced weighting for both profit and cash flow across the year.
"Our operating profit and cash growth reflects an underlying performance improvement driven by the impact of our strategic initiatives, notably commercial optimisation including contractual improvements, cost efficiency actions, and the effective management of ongoing supply chain challenges," the company stated.
In Civil Aerospace, the company noted long-term service agreement large engine flying hours have returned to 100% of 2019 levels in the four months to April 30, driven by the continued recovery of international traffic in Asia and its growing fleet.
For the full year, expectations of large EFH at 100% to 110% of 2019 levels, 1,300 to 1,400 shop visits, and 500 to 550 original equipment deliveries are all unchanged, Rolls-Royce added.
In Defence, the long-term growth of the business has been underpinned by several recent contract awards, the company said, including "encouraging progress" at the Global Combat Air Programme, which is led by the UK, Japan and Italy.
In Power Systems, Rolls-Royce said its strong position in the data centre market is providing growth opportunities as it sees higher demand from artificial intelligence and cloud services providers.
Half-year results will be released on August 1.
By Jeremy Cutler, Alliance News reporter
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