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Investors bought up shares in drone defence technology company DroneShield (ASX: DRO) this morning after the company announced a $61.6 million contract, its biggest ever, from an undisclosed military client in Europe.
Shares in the Sydney-based company, which have been rising in recent weeks on the back of increased defence spending globally, hit a high of $2.19 – up 40.5c from yesterday’s close with more than 25 million shares traded.
The shares are up from a 2025 low of 59c struck in February when the US showed wavering support for the Ukraine conflict, but the stock has been in a bullish rally in the wake of rising tensions in the Middle East.
DroneShield, the developer and manufacturer of a range of handheld detection and counter-drone systems, has revealed today that the latest contract is greater than its entire revenue for 2024 which totalled $57.5 million.
The $61.6 million contract has been received from a privately owned in-country European reseller that is contractually required to distribute the products to the European military customer.
The contracts are for handheld detection and counter-drone systems and associated accessories, all of which are expected to be delivered in the third quarter of this calendar year.
DroneShield says recent expansion of its production and inventory holding facilities has enabled the order to be delivered during the quarter.
The company reveals that over the past two years, the reseller involved in the latest package of contracts has progressively increased DroneShield orders from “single evaluation units to multimillion-dollar contracts, with all imports, deliveries, and payments handled on-time and in a highly professional manner”.
DroneShield last received a single contract totalling $500,000 from this reseller for this specific customer in April 2024.
“In succession to the $32.2 million repeat order announced on 14 April 2025 for another customer, DroneShield products are now being purchased in material quantities,” says DroneShield CEO Oleg Vornik.
“The scale and frequency of orders has been increasing as leading military customers are moving from testing hardware to broader rollouts. DroneShield is well placed to meet the increasing demand.”
The $32.2 million order announced in April went to an in-country reseller supplying a military end customer in an undisclosed Asian Pacific country.
DroneShield said at the time that the reseller was a wholly owned subsidiary of a multibillion-dollar publicly listed global customer.
The company says drones are playing an increasing role in modern warfare and as their uses rapidly evolve the need for next generation counter-drone technology is becoming “increasingly critical”.
The company says artificial intelligence systems are being used to more precisely and autonomously engage targets and this increases the need for advanced countermeasures.
DroneShield estimates its addressable market is worth more than US$10 billion ($15.3 billion) globally.
The company has a current order pipeline of $2.4 billion from 268 customers. This is up from $519 million and 93 customers in the March quarter of last year.
Almost half of the current sales pipeline, or $1.1 billion, has come from Europe with the US accounting for $663 million.
DroneShield shares were trading at 31.5c higher at $2.10 at 11.21am (AEST).
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