Delair Africa: French drone manufacturer sets up in Rabat

After opening a subsidiary in Ukraine last year, Delair is looking south. The French drone manufacturer is establishing itself in Morocco under the Delair Africa banner, with Rabat as its base for the entire continent. CEO Bastien Mancini is targeting between 500 million and one billion euros in revenue by 2030. Africa is part of that equation.

These clients already exist. The first DT26 drones were delivered to Africa in 2019, to Niger. Since then, Delair has signed contracts with Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Chad, Mauritania and Benin, primarily for border surveillance and counterterrorism support missions. The DT26 stays airborne for 170 minutes, launches by catapult in eight minutes, and lands on any terrain. Its modular payload bay accepts third-party sensors — thermal, hyperspectral, gas detection — which has also made it useful for energy groups like TotalEnergies and Schlumberger. For longer-range missions, the DT46 takes over.

From Rabat, Delair also plans to grow its underwater activity: hull inspection, mine clearance, environmental monitoring, through its marine subsidiary. A growing segment with little connection to military drones, but driven by the same logic: stay close to African clients to respond quickly.

75 million euros in revenue targeted for 2026, between 500 million and one billion by 2030. The gap is striking. Africa, with its structural needs in surveillance and infrastructure security, is one of the bets on which that projection rests.

Comments

comments