Hanwha Aerospace

Hanwha Aerospace traces its roots to 1977, when it was founded as Samsung Precision and tasked with building gas turbine engines — still the only such operation in South Korea. The business passed to Hanwha Group as Hanwha Techwin in 2015 and was renamed Hanwha Aerospace in 2018, becoming the holding entity for the conglomerate’s defence and aerospace arms. Its registered headquarters sit in Seongnam, with major manufacturing in Changwon. Jaeil Son leads the company as chief executive, reporting up into a Hanwha Group structure controlled by chairman Kim Seung-youn and increasingly steered by his eldest son Kim Dong-kwan.

The defence portfolio is dominated by the K9 Thunder, a 155 mm tracked self-propelled howitzer that has become the world’s best-selling artillery system of its class. Hanwha builds the K9 in Changwon and has licensed local production in several customer states. Alongside it, the Chunmoo multiple-launch rocket system pairs guided rockets and tactical missiles on a wheeled chassis. The wheeled Tigon, offered in 4×4, 6×6, and 8×8 variants, is the firm’s pitch for the modular armoured-vehicle market and was on display at the 2026 World Defense Show in Riyadh. On the unmanned side, the Arion-SMET multipurpose ground vehicle completed Foreign Comparative Testing with the US Marine Corps in 2023; an upgraded successor, Grunt, launched in 2025 with greater range and payload. The group’s broader catalogue stretches into airframe components, satellite systems through subsidiary Satrec Initiative, and naval shipbuilding via Hanwha Ocean.

Export wins have made Hanwha one of the most visible beneficiaries of Europe’s post-2022 rearmament. Poland signed a multi-stage agreement in 2022 covering hundreds of K9s and Chunmoo launchers, with deliveries continuing through the decade and follow-on contracts pushing the total well past USD 10 billion. K9 customers also include Finland, Norway, Estonia, Turkey, India, Egypt, Australia, and Romania, with Romania’s 2024 deal worth roughly USD 920 million. The company has paired with Rheinmetall on Germany’s Panther tracked vehicle programme and partners on Australia’s Land 400 Phase 3, which will deliver Redback infantry fighting vehicles built by Hanwha Defence Australia in Geelong.

The financials reflect that surge. Hanwha Aerospace is listed on the KRX under ticker 012450 and crossed a USD 60 billion market capitalisation in 2024 as defence orders multiplied; revenue from the defence segment more than doubled between 2022 and 2024. The group has used the windfall to consolidate, absorbing former sibling Hanwha Defense in 2022 and acquiring Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, since rebranded as Hanwha Ocean, in 2023.

Not every move has gone unchallenged. Minority shareholders pushed back in 2025 against a capital raise that they argued favoured the founding family, and Korean regulators have repeatedly examined intra-group transactions inside Hanwha. The K9’s wartime use, particularly in Ukraine following Polish transfers, has also drawn scrutiny over end-user controls on Korean-built systems. For now, Hanwha Aerospace sits at the centre of a deliberate national strategy to make South Korea a top-tier arms exporter, with the K9 production line serving as both the symbol and the engine of that ambition.