"Modest" naval contracts carry strategic weight, Kongsberg CEO says

Kongsberg’s latest naval contracts may be modest in size, but the company is treating them as something far more significant: an opportunity to shape how future naval fleets are designed.

Speaking during the first-quarter investor call, chief executive Eirik Lie described recent agreements on standardised vessels in Norway and Canada as a “breakthrough” for how naval fleets could be designed and procured.

- While the nominal value of these contracts is modest, the agreements represent a breakthrough for standardised vessel concepts, Lie said in an investor call.

- In Norway we will work closely with the Navy and the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency to define the final design for up to 28 new vessels, he added.

The comments relate to ongoing design work tied to Norway’s programme for up to 28 standardised naval vessels, as well as a parallel Canadian Coast Guard project.

The Norwegian programme is expected to become one of the largest naval procurements in the Nordics, aimed at replacing multiple vessel classes with a unified platform.

1,200 subcontractors

At the same time, the programme remains in an early design phase, where key decisions on architecture, integration and long-term operability are still being defined.

That phase is increasingly emerging as the critical battleground for suppliers, where early design choices can shape decades of maintenance, upgrade pathways and system integration.

As earlier reported by Defence Nordic, the company has indicated its bid could engage up to 1,200 subcontractors across Norway, underlining the industrial scale of the programme.

The Norwegian programme has already seen delays, with first delivery now expected around 2030, reflecting the complexity of defining a standardised platform across multiple mission profiles.

Lie’s comments suggest the company is positioning these early-stage contracts less as immediate revenue drivers and more as a way to shape programme architecture at an early stage.

The remarks come as Kongsberg reported strong first-quarter results, with revenues rising 26 percent to NOK 9.2bn and order intake reaching NOK 27bn, driven primarily by defence systems.