RTX Corp.

RTX ·Industrials, Aerospace & Defense, United States

RTX Corporation (RTX)

Overview

RTX Corporation is one of the world's largest aerospace and defense companies, formed in 2020 through the merger of Raytheon Company and United Technologies Corporation and rebranded from Raytheon Technologies to RTX in 2023. The company is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, and sits in the Industrials sector, Aerospace & Defense industry. RTX is a genuine scale player in its industry: trailing revenue is roughly $88-94 billion a year, it employs approximately 180,000 people worldwide, and its market capitalization is in the range of $270+ billion. Its products touch nearly every commercial airliner and a large share of U.S. and allied military aircraft and missile systems flying today.

What They Do & How They Make Money

RTX makes money by designing, manufacturing, and servicing the systems that power and equip aircraft and defense platforms. On the commercial side, it builds jet engines, avionics, cabin interiors, actuation systems, and other aircraft components that it sells to airframers (like Boeing and Airbus) and airlines, then generates a long tail of high-margin recurring revenue from spare parts, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services, and aftermarket support over the decades-long life of an aircraft. On the defense side, it sells missiles, radars, sensors, air and missile defense systems, cybersecurity and intelligence capabilities, and other military hardware primarily to the U.S. Department of Defense and allied foreign governments, typically under multi-year, cost-plus or fixed-price government contracts. A large and growing backlog (well over $200 billion) of both commercial aftermarket and defense contracts gives RTX unusually high revenue visibility for an industrial company.

Business Segments

RTX reports three primary business segments:

Pratt & Whitney — Designs, manufactures, and services aircraft engines for commercial, military, and business/general aviation aircraft, including the geared turbofan (GTF) engine family and military engines such as the F135 that powers the F-35 fighter. This is currently RTX's largest segment by revenue (roughly $33 billion, about 36% of total revenue in fiscal 2025), driven by strong commercial engine deliveries and aftermarket shop visits, though GTF durability issues have required costly inspections and customer compensation in recent years.
Collins Aerospace — Supplies a broad portfolio of aerospace systems and components, including avionics, interiors, power and controls, landing systems, and communication/navigation equipment, to commercial and military customers. It generated roughly $30 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue (about 33% of the total).
Raytheon — RTX's core defense business, producing missiles and missile defense systems (e.g., Patriot, Standard Missile, NASAMS), radars, command-and-control systems, and cyber/intelligence solutions primarily for the U.S. government and allied militaries. It generated roughly $28 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue (about 31% of the total) and has benefited from elevated global defense spending and munitions replenishment demand tied to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

RTX does not break out segment operating profit in every public summary, but Collins Aerospace and the Raytheon defense business have historically carried somewhat higher margins than Pratt & Whitney, whose commercial engine ramp and GTF fleet management costs have weighed on segment profitability.

Competitors

Commercial aerospace / engines & components: General Electric (GE Aerospace) and Safran (CFM International joint venture) compete directly with Pratt & Whitney in commercial jet engines; Honeywell, Safran, and various avionics/interiors suppliers compete with Collins Aerospace across specific product lines.
Defense systems and missiles: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and to a lesser extent Boeing's defense unit and L3Harris Technologies compete with Raytheon across missile defense, munitions, radar, and space/intelligence programs. General Dynamics also competes in select defense electronics and munitions areas.
Broader aerospace & defense primes: Boeing (both as a commercial customer/airframer partner and a defense competitor) and international players such as BAE Systems, Airbus's defense arm, and Rolls-Royce (engines) round out the competitive set, though RTX often partners with these same companies on specific platforms even as it competes with them on others.

Competitive Position

RTX's moat rests on deep, multi-decade incumbency: once an engine or avionics system is designed onto an airframe or a missile system is adopted by a government, switching costs are enormous, and RTX captures highly profitable aftermarket and sustainment revenue for the platform's entire service life. Its scale, engineering depth, and long-standing relationships with the Pentagon and allied defense ministries make it one of only a handful of companies capable of executing the largest, most complex aerospace and defense programs, and its enormous backlog provides revenue visibility that few industrial companies can match. Geopolitical tensions and rising global defense budgets, particularly in Europe and among NATO allies, have been a tailwind for the Raytheon segment specifically.

Key risks include continued execution and cost issues on the Pratt & Whitney GTF engine program (fleet inspections, powder-metal contamination remediation, and compensation to airline customers have cost billions and pressured near-term cash flow and margins); reliance on relatively volatile and politically-sensitive U.S. and allied defense budgets; supply chain and labor constraints that have periodically slowed production ramps across the aerospace industry; and customer concentration, since a small number of government and airframer customers (the U.S. government, Boeing, Airbus) account for a large share of revenue. Litigation, export-control compliance, and geopolitical risk (including potential disruptions to international sales tied to sanctions or trade policy) are also ongoing considerations for a company this deeply embedded in global defense supply chains.