Saab AB

Saab has been building aircraft in Sweden since 1937, and while the Gripen fighter is still what most people associate with the name, the company today spans a wider set of businesses organized under Aeronautics, Dynamics, Surveillance, Kockums, and its Industrial Products and Services arm. Aeronautics builds the Gripen, now in its E and C/D variants, developed and flown by the Swedish Air Force and exported to Brazil, and it is also a risk-sharing partner with Boeing on the T-7 Red Hawk, the jet trainer chosen to replace the US Air Force's aging T-38 fleet, a program that has run behind its original schedule but remains a rare instance of a European fighter maker holding a structural share of a US Air Force aircraft program. The Dynamics division makes shoulder-fired and vehicle-mounted weapons, including the Carl-Gustaf recoilless rifle, a design so durable that updated versions are still standard infantry equipment across dozens of armies, and the AT4 disposable anti-armor weapon widely used by the US military. It also builds guided weapons like the RBS-15 anti-ship missile, the RBS-70 man-portable air defense missile, and NLAW, the lightweight anti-tank weapon that saw heavy use in Ukraine's early defense against Russian armor.

Surveillance covers radar and combat management systems, including the Giraffe family of ground-based radars and its naval Sea Giraffe variant, along with electronic warfare and the Skeldar family of unmanned helicopters used for maritime and land surveillance. Kockums, Saab's submarine and naval shipbuilding arm based in Karlskrona, builds the A26 Blekinge-class submarine for the Swedish Navy, a design incorporating stealth and air-independent propulsion technology, and has historically supplied submarines and surface vessels to other Nordic and export navies. Industrial Products and Services rounds out the group through Combitech, a technical consultancy, along with avionics systems and air traffic management technology used at civil airports across Scandinavia and beyond. Saab is majority influenced by Sweden's Wallenberg family through its Investor AB holding company, though it trades publicly on Nasdaq Stockholm under the ticker SAAB B and is a component of the OMX Stockholm 30 index.

The company employs roughly 27,800 people, most of them in Sweden, with Linköping serving as its main aircraft development and manufacturing site alongside its Stockholm headquarters. Rising European defense spending following Russia's invasion of Ukraine has pushed Saab's order backlog and revenue sharply higher across nearly every one of its business areas.