Palantir vs. the defense primes: profitability
This chart compares Palantir’s net-income margin with four large defense primes. It uses annual whole-company SEC revenue and net income; commercial exposure, acquisitions, and differing business mixes limit direct conclusions about the profitability of defense software versus hardware.
What does it show?
Palantir has moved from deep losses to a higher net margin than the selected defense primes.
Methodology
Annual whole-company results from SEC XBRL company concepts for Palantir, Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics, restricted to fiscal years available for all five companies. These are not comparable defense-contract revenues: Palantir includes commercial customers, RTX includes commercial aerospace, and General Dynamics includes Gulfstream. RTX's 2020 Raytheon/United Technologies combination also creates a corporate-scope break. Net-income margin is annual NetIncomeLoss divided by annual revenue for the same fiscal year. Negative values represent a whole-company net loss.