Howmet Aerospace (HWM) sees demand across its aerospace and industrial gas turbine blade and vane businesses outstripping supply, prompting the company to ramp capital spending and construction of new facilities, CEO John Plant told analysts at the Jefferies Global Industrials Conference on September 9, 2026.
Howmet held roughly 50% combined market share in aerospace and industrial gas turbine blades and vanes, Plant said. Long-term contracts with major turbine and aerospace manufacturers extend through the end of the decade, with some arrangements reaching into the mid-2030s. One notable renewal sits ahead: a business jet turbine customer contract comes up for renegotiation in January 2027.
Revenue for the trailing twelve months reached $9.1 billion, reflecting 18% year-over-year growth, Plant said. The company expects revenue to exceed $10 billion by the end of 2026. On the industrial gas turbine segment, Howmet had previously guided toward doubling sales to approximately $2 billion annually within three to five years from 2025, with an update expected in February.
Spares now account for 22% of total sales, up from 2019 levels, while the defense portfolio grew 11% in the second quarter. Capital expenditure has doubled since 2023, and the company has funded roughly $2 billion in acquisitions while maintaining leverage near 1.2x post-acquisition, a level management expects to hold steady.
On the floor, Plant described an environment where demand is overwhelming. "It is almost like it does not really matter what, just produce something, just because the demand requirement is so great," he said. That demand surge stems partly from data-center power needs driving industrial gas turbine orders alongside steady aerospace growth.
Howmet is responding by building multiple new casting furnaces it characterized as the largest in the world, with expansions underway in Japan, Europe, and the United States. Plant estimated the company is adding roughly 2.5 additional manufacturing plants' worth of capacity on top of already committed projects — including about 1.5 plants' worth requested as a special demand doubling by one engine customer.
The company has also improved production efficiency, achieving approximately a 30% yield improvement year-to-date by shifting from batch production to serial production using takt time methods. Technological progression — from equiax through directionally solidified to single-crystal designs, along with a broader move toward air-cooled turbine blades — remains a differentiator, Plant said.
Looking ahead, the primary constraint is no longer capital deployment alone but whether additional building footprint is needed to sustain the expansion. "The biggest issue that we have today is really not only facilitating for the capital that we have been deploying, but what we are going to continue to deploy over the next two or three years," Plant said. "Also, our next decision is do we need to have more building footprint for the capacity expansion."
Howmet's shares were trading at $228.75, down 1.66%, with a market capitalization of $93 billion at the time of publication.
