Posts Tagged ‘Rafale’

Following Indian MMRCA success, Dassaut’s Rafale also tipped for Brazil

February 13, 2012
Dassault’s success in being selected as the lowest bidder for the Indian MMRCA competition with the Rafale aircraft seems to be having a significant impact in other deals. The Rafale is now the most likely winner of the Brazilian contract for 36 aircraft. The aggressive pricing by Dassault and the active (and very effective) lobbying by the French government is a potent combination. The Rafale has not yet been sold outside France and the Indian and Brazilian deals are critical for the future export life of the Rafale.
In Brazil the Rafale is competing against Boeing’s F-18 and Saab’s Gripen. Though Saab is also desperately looking for export orders for the Gripen, it is unlikely that it can afford to drop its prices by the levels that Dassault obviously can. Boeing on the other hand is not so dependent on the Brazilian orders and is unlikely to drop its price by very much – especially since they will not wish to disturb the already very high price levels they enjoy for exports to the Middle-East. And that probably leaves the Rafale sitting very pretty.

Svenska Dagbladet reports (freely translated):

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Indian MMRCA: Rafale deal is $5 billion cheaper than the Eurofighter

February 10, 2012

Though David Cameron and the other leaders of the four country consortium which manufactures the Eurofighter Typhoon (UK, Germany, Spain and Italy) have all been somewhat whiny about the selection of the French (Dassault) Rafale for the 126 aircraft Indian MMRCA deal it seems highly unlikely that the Typhoon can make a comeback.

The life-time cost of the contract is evaluated at about $20 billion with an initial contract value of about $10-12 billion. The ToI reports that the Rafale deal was evaluated as being $5 billion (about 25%) cheaper than the Eurofighter. Though the evaluation probably considers a total of about 189 aircraft (126 +63 in phase 2) it still represents a life-cycle cost difference of some $26 million per aircraft  and not just the $4-5 million lower initial acquisition cost per aircraft (bid-price). It seems almost impossible for the Eurofighter to match this difference. The first 18 aircraft have to be delivered in “fly-away” condition from mid-2015 onwards. The next 108 aircraft will have to be delivered from HAL in India at about 6 per year initially going up to 20 per year.

Exclusive negotiations between Dassault and the Indian Ministry of Defence start next week.

Times of India:

It was the “substantially higher cost” of acquiring and operating the Eurofighter Typhoon that led to its ejection from the almost $20 billion MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project to supply 126 fighters to IAF. 

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