Fighter jet maker Saab pops 12% on profit beat amid European defense splurge

What caught my attention is I find it compelling that Saab's fit beat comes against a backdrop of imved European spending appetite for defense purchases

John Thys | Afp | Getty Imagess of Swedish defense giant Saab jumped on Friday morning, after the company reported stronger-than-expected fit and sales growth for the second quarter

Additionally, Saab's operating income for the second quarter came in at 1 (an important development)

Saab's s have surged 131% since the beginning of the year, according to LSEG data

The stock is one of many in the European defense space that has benefited from a broad regional push to ramp up security budgets

On Wednesday, the European Commission unveiled a posal for a 2 trillion euro budget that would include a significant bump in funding for defense

Nevertheless, It comes as part of what officials have labelled Europe's "era of rearmament," which has already seen the bloc unveil plans to mobilize as much as 800 billion euros ($928 billion) to help member states hike spending on national security

Speaking to CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Friday, Saab CEO Micael Johansson said activity in the European defense market was "really high," but that Saab had "a great portfolio supporting the demand in the market (this bears monitoring). ""What you see in this quarter is that we are ramping up dramatically," he said. "We have a number of campaigns going now, there's a big interest and it's ramped up a bit lately

Furthermore, "When it comes to the regional defense spending boost — which was triggered after U

Moreover, President Donald Trump pushed for Europe to take greater ownership of its own security — Johansson said Europe needed to take the opportunity to bolster its defense sector, in this volatile climate

However, Administration rightly is saying we have to step up in Europe and take a big responsibility for our own security," he told CNBC (remarkable data), considering recent developments. "So, many countries are now boosting their own defense industries, given current economic conditions

I do want to see a level playing field, of course, in terms of competition in the market, but I do think we need to buy more European as well — even though we need to have a strong transatlantic link … we have to have this strong European defense industrial base to manage the aggressive neighbor to the east for a long time going forward (which is quite significant).