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Investors Reward Huntington Ingalls as Navy Revenue Booms

HII submarine
Courtesy HII

By The Maritime Executive 2026-10-29 18:26:19

Huntington Ingalls Industries' stock price jumped 13 percent on Thursday after the release of the firm's third quarter results, which contained very positive news: the nation's primary defense shipbuilder is making a six percent profit margin on shipbuilding operations, and its pool of new hires and apprentices is in great shape. But most importantly, the company already has 90 percent of its targeted revenue under contract with the federal government through 2030 - a long time horizon for any company. 

HII builds all of the nation's carriers and amphibs; half of its submarines (split with Electric Boat); and the majority of its destroyers (shared with Bath Iron Works). It also has a share of the new Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) program, executed in partnership with three smaller Gulf Coast shipbuilders.

HII's core business of producing warships is booming. It received $32 billion in new contracts in the third quarter alone, primarily for nuclear-powered submarines, and shipbuilding revenue rose by 14 percent in the quarter. Delays are a factor for all U.S. Navy shipbuilding contracts, but HII is seeing progress in increasing its throughput by boosting its outsourcing efforts to bring in smaller yards. "Distributed shipbuilding is meeting targeted levels, and we expect to exceed 30% growth year-over-year," said president and CEO Chris Kastner in an earnings call on Thursday.

The HII Mission Technologies division is proving to be a strong profit center, posting EBITDA of 10 percent year to date. It has secured a $2.2 billion surveillance contract to support U.S. Southern Command's counternarcotics operations in Central and South America and the Caribbean, plus another $330 million in work for the Air Force in deploying enterprise-grade AI solutions. It's also putting investment into containerized or palletized systems that can be deployed from sea or land platforms. That includes modular solutions for "advanced EW capabilities, directed energy, kinetic launch systems, and counter-UAS systems," according to Mission Technologies chief Andy Green.