Alstom signs €460m Riyadh metro train order despite margin warning

Alstom signed a contract worth around €460m on Friday for additional driverless metro trains in Riyadh, with the Royal Commission for Riyadh City as the customer. The agreement covers not only the supply of the trains but also their integration into the existing network infrastructure.

The vehicles are destined for lines 3, 4 and 6 of the Riyadh Metro.

The order lands against a deteriorating financial backdrop. Roughly a week earlier, Alstom issued a profit warning. According to media reports, the company lowered its forecast for the adjusted operating margin in the 2026/27 financial year to around 1%, having previously guided for approximately 6.5%.

The free cashflow outlook swung from a positive figure to an expected outflow of €1.5bn. Planned production volume fell to roughly 4,000 rail vehicles, down from the previously intended 4,400 to 4,500.

What do the half-year numbers show?

Preliminary results for the first half of the 2026/27 financial year recorded sales of €9.3bn, equal to reported growth of 3%. The adjusted operating margin stood at approximately minus 4%, against 6.4% in the prior-year period. Alstom has scheduled the detailed half-year results for 17 November 2026.

The Riyadh contract is therefore a concrete order win in a week when the company's operational trajectory moved sharply negative. For the Royal Commission for Riyadh City, the deal extends the driverless fleet on a network that already carries three of the lines covered by this order.

Where did Alstom start new passenger services?

The same Friday saw Alstom's new-generation TGV enter commercial operation. According to the company, this deployment delivers the first operational reference for the Avelia Horizon platform — a milestone for a product line that until now lacked in-service validation.

On Wednesday, passenger service began on Pune metro line 3, where Alstom Metropolis trains serve the new Tech Corridor route.

In Romania, a Traxx passenger locomotive entered commercial passenger operation on 3 November equipped with the ETCS Level 2 train control system. Alstom described this as the country's first passenger traffic run under that signalling system.

The week's activity spans four countries and three continents:

• Saudi Arabia: €460m driverless metro order for Riyadh lines 3, 4 and 6, including integration into existing infrastructure.
• France: first commercial service of the new-generation TGV, the debut operational reference for Avelia Horizon.
• India: passenger operations launched on Pune metro line 3's Tech Corridor with Metropolis trains.
• Romania: Traxx passenger locomotive running commercial service under ETCS Level 2 from 3 November, a national first for passenger traffic.

What does this change for Alstom?

The Riyadh order and the service launches add revenue visibility and fleet references, but the scale is modest relative to the forecast deterioration. A €460m contract compares with a €1.5bn expected cash outflow and a margin that swung from plus 6.4% to minus 4% year on year in the half-year figures.

The detailed half-year results on 17 November 2026 will show whether the revised 1% margin guidance for 2026/27 holds, and how the order intake of recent weeks offsets the cut in planned production from up to 4,500 vehicles to around 4,000.