Product and Customer Concentration – the Risks for OEMs

Airbus and Boeing each have extensive wide-body and narrow-body product lines, as well as several key customers who order large fleets of aircraft. But heavy concentration can be a risk as well. Nobody wants to put all of their eggs in one basket.  But how do the duopoly members compare to the diversity of sales across the product family and concentration with just a few key customers?

Using our deliveries database, we examined the concentration in both model types and customers for Airbus

and Boeing to determine if one of the players had higher risks than the others. Our findings were quite interesting.

Tracking our daily delivery database from January 1, 2021, through November 5, 2023, we found that Airbus delivered 1,867 aircraft to 1,151 from Boeing. Airbus’s market share in deliveries during the period was 61.8%, giving it a strong lead in the duopoly. There were several issues impacting both OEMs during the period, with Boeing having the more difficult impacts due to quality issues. Both OEMs faced supply chain issues, and with the Pratt & Whitney 1100G engine issues, we expect supply chain and quality issues to continue into 2025-2026.  Each OEM will have a difficult time meeting 2023 production targets.

Concentration by Product

Looking on a model-by-model basis, Boeing’s 737-8 and the high-density 737-8-200 variant of the same aircraft are the top sellers at Boeing, with 752 aircraft delivered of the 1,151 total, or 65.3%. Adding the 737-9 with 172 deliveries and 777F with 54 deliveries, the second and third-best sellers generate 85.0% of aircraft deliveries.. The top six, including the 787-9. 767-300F, and 787-10, bring the cumulative total to 96.4%.

The following chart shows the percentage concentration by model for Boeing deliveries from 1/1/2021 through 11/5/2023: