USMC / Navy Sales Director

DroneShield bags $23.2M European contracts as margins slip. DroneShield landed $23.2 million in European contracts, rolled out a new detection engine and lifted its full-year outlook, all in one hit on 28 July. The DroneShield $23.2 million European contracts came through a familiar face. COBBS BELUX BV, a reseller the Sydney company has worked with in the Benelux region for years, will pass the gear on to a European military buyer it won't name. The kit is vehicle-mounted counter-drone hardware, plus subscriptions, warranties and services. Of that total, about $21 million lands inside this year's committed revenue. The rest trickles in later as subscription income. Here's the bit worth chewing on. DroneShield says it doesn't think the end-customer's identity would move the share price. That's a careful line. Companies only write sentences like that when they've thought hard about what they legally have to tell the market. Read it as a nod to how closely this stock is being watched right now. Why the DroneShield counter-drone contracts in Europe keep coming. Europe has become the company's engine room. Back in December it booked a $49.6 million European deal, its biggest at the time. This new package is smaller, but it fits the same story: NATO-aligned buyers moving from testing drones defences to actually buying them at scale. The war in Ukraine did that. Cheap drones now do real damage, and every army near the fighting wants a way to knock them down or jam them. DroneShield sells exactly that. The company opened a European factory in June and set up a Polish supply chain a fortnight later. Poland spends more than 4% of its GDP on defence. Sitting close to that money is the whole point. So the contract isn't a shock. It's the tempo that matters. Deals this size have gone from rare to routine, and that changes how the numbers stack up. RfAI-3 and the shift from selling boxes to selling software. The second announcement got less attention but might mean more over time. DroneShield unveiled RfAI-3, the third version of its radio frequency detection engine. Visual output from RfAI-3 [Droneshield] The clever part is what it does with drones it has never seen. Older systems only spot an aircraft if it's already in a library, catalogued and named. RfAI-3 scans wide across the spectrum, compares an unknown signal against past ones, then builds a fresh signature on the spot with a confidence score for the operator. CEO Angus Bean put it bluntly. "The threat that matters most is the one we have not yet encountered, and by the time we encounter it a second time, it will have changed again," he said. He called software-defined radio a "genuinely dynamic battlespace" and framed RfAI-3 as the answer. That quote tells you where the head office is pointing. Bean took the top job in April after a decade inside the business, replacing Oleg Vornik. His plan leans on software and subscriptions rather than one-off hardware sales. RfAI-3, built for hardware that ships from late 2026, is that plan taking shape. The trading update hides a margin story. Now the money. First-half 2026 revenue is tipped at $125.8 million, up 74% on the year before. Committed revenue for the year sits at $206 million, near what the whole of 2025 brought in, with five months still to run. Full-year guidance is $250 million to $270 million. Committed revenue nearly doubled in seven months, hitting $206 million by late July. Big numbers. But run your eye down to the margin line. * 1H 2026 gross margin: about 60% * Same period last year: 65% * Full-year target the company still wants: around 65% Five points off the gross margin is the detail most headlines skip. DroneShield blames the sales mix, because it had to buy third-party hardware to fill these contracts, plus currency swings and a raw-material write-down tied to moving factories and switching on new software. None of that is fatal. Growing this fast costs money, and margins wobble when a business is bolting on capacity. But it's the kind of thing that bites at results time on 26 August if it drifts lower instead of recovering. Bean is banking on the company's own next-gen hardware and more subscription income to pull the margin back up in the second half. That's a promise, not a result yet. The market has stopped clapping. Here's the awkward truth an investor takeaway has to face. Wins like this used to send DRO flying. In 2024 it was the best performer on the ASX 200. Lately the stock has done the opposite, sliding through much of 2026 even as the order book swelled past $2 billion. Two clouds explain a lot of it. One is price. The stock still trades on a rich multiple, so any hiccup gets punished hard. The other is trust. An ASIC investigation into a November 2025 announcement and some director share sales has hung over the register for months. DroneShield itself isn't accused of wrongdoing, but the probe left a mark. That's why the "not material by omission" language in this announcement reads like a company minding its every word. For a reader weighing this up, the question isn't whether DroneShield can win contracts. It plainly can. The question is whether it can turn a $2 billion-plus pipeline into cash without the margin leaking or another governance stumble. The 26 August results are the next real test. FAQs. Q: How much are the new DroneShield European contracts worth? A: $23.2 million, with about $21 million landing in FY2026 committed revenue. Q: Who is the buyer? A: A European military end-customer, unnamed, supplied through reseller COBBS BELUX BV. Q: What is RfAI-3? A: DroneShield's third-generation RF detection engine that can identify drones not yet in its signature library. Q: What is DroneShield's full-year revenue guidance? A: Between $250 million and $270 million for FY2026. Q: When are the half-year results due? A: Wednesday 26 August, with an investor call the next morning. Q: Why did gross margin fall? A: Sales mix with third-party hardware, currency moves and a raw-material write-down from a factory relocation. Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. It does not account for your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Figures are drawn from DroneShield's ASX announcement dated 28 July 2026 and are preliminary and unaudited. Share price and market data must be verified against live sources before acting. Investing in shares carries risk, including loss of capital. Seek advice from a licensed financial adviser before making any investment decision.

DroneShield updates software for faster drone threats. Software is becoming the core of counter-UAS. DroneShield has rolled out a new quarterly software update for its counter-UAS ecosystem. The main goal of the release is straightforward: improve performance against drone threats that are faster, more agile and harder to track in operational settings. Rather than focusing on a single product, the update is designed to strengthen the system as a whole. That matters in counter-UAS operations, where sensors, monitoring tools and response workflows must work together with minimal friction. What the release improves. According to the source, the update focuses on three essential areas: * detection - faster identification of airborne targets; * tracking - more stable follow-up during evasive movement; * interoperability - better coordination across the ecosystem. This is especially relevant as drone threats become more unpredictable. Speed alone is no longer the only challenge. Low-altitude flight, sudden trajectory changes and evasive maneuvers all place pressure on the software layer that ties the system together. Why operators care. Software releases often have a practical impact without requiring changes to hardware. For operators, that means existing deployments can be adapted more easily to emerging threat profiles. If a drone is moving faster or changing direction more aggressively, the system must keep tracking it reliably and avoid losing the target. Interoperability is equally important. In larger installations, different sensors and tools need to feed into one coherent operational picture. The smoother that integration is, the faster operators can interpret the situation and act on it. A broader industry trend. The counter-UAS sector is increasingly driven by software. As drones become more capable and harder to counter, vendors are leaning on algorithm improvements, tighter integration and more flexible architectures. Quarterly releases are one way to keep systems current without waiting for major hardware cycles. DroneShield's update reflects a wider shift in the market: the most effective counter-UAS platforms are the ones that can adapt quickly and maintain precision as threats evolve.

DroneShield and Defenture announce strategic partnership to advance mobile counter-uas capability. DroneShield, a global leader in counter-drone technology solutions, along with Defenture, an innovation-driven company specialising in tactical mobility solutions, announce a strategic partnership to accelerate joint commercial opportunities for mobile counter-UAS capability. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing ceremony was held at Eurosatory 2026, a global tradeshow for defence and security that brings together key stakeholders from the international ecosystem. The MOU will combine DroneShield's counter-UAS hardware, software, command-and-control, and operational support capabilities with Defenture's on-the-move vehicle platform expertise. Together, the companies aim to progress a coordinated market deployment roadmap for an air defence and counter-UAS command-and-control solution suited to modern operational environments. Under the MOU, the parties intend to jointly define, prioritise, and pursue commercial activities, including coordinated go-to-market initiatives, customer engagement, testing activities, interoperability milestones, and selected joint opportunities. This includes offering DroneShield's current and next generation counter-UAS systems across Defenture platforms, such as the Mammoth and GRF, as well as the development of layered on-the-move counter-UAS concepts for future customer engagement. The collaboration reflects growing demand for highly mobile, mission-ready counter-drone systems that can support military and security operators in increasingly complex threat environments. Louis Gamarra, Chief Commercial Officer at DroneShield said, "Many military customers are looking for scalable and mobile counter-UAS solutions, that can be deployed quickly and operate effectively in dynamic environments. DroneShield's new partnership with Defenture brings together complementary strengths to support that requirement and create a pathway for joint opportunities in key markets." Roderick Toutenhoofd, board member at Defenture said "By combining Defenture's mobile platform capability with DroneShield's proven counter-UAS technologies, we are better placed to support customers seeking agile, layered protection against evolving drone threats. The evolution of modern drone warfare has made clear that traditional platforms now require UAS protection, and partnering with DroneShield allows us to bring that capability to market in a way that is practical, mobile, and operationally relevant." As military and security operators across Europe continue to prioritise counter-UAS capabilities, this MOU provides a pathway for DroneShield and Defenture to pursue joint opportunities that bring together mobility, interoperability, and operational effectiveness in response to evolving drone threats. About DroneShield DroneShield (ASX:DRO) provides Artificial Intelligence based platforms for protection against advanced threats such as drones and autonomous systems. We offer solutions designed to suit a variety of terrestrial, maritime or airborne platforms. Our customers include military, intelligence community, Government, law enforcement, critical infrastructure, and airports. Learn more at www.droneshield.com/about About Defenture Defenture, founded in 2013 and headquartered in Tiel, the Netherlands, is an innovation-driven company specialising in the design, development, production and maintenance of unique light tactical mobility solutions. Our platforms provide safety and mobility to military and specialised units that protect us. Learn more at www.defenture.com