European aircraft maker Airbus has beaten US rival Boeing with record sales and orders last year but came second in terms of finished airliners delivered, figures from the company show.
Airbus said that in 2013 it took 1,503 net orders, allowing for cancellations. This compares with 1,355 orders taken by Boeing. Total orders taken by Airbus is a record for the whole industry.
Airbus also said that at the end of last year it had record orders to build 5,559 aircraft, equivalent to eight years of production. Results published by Boeing on January 6 showed that the US firm had a total order book for 5,080 aircraft.
However, last year Airbus delivered 626 planes, trailing behind Boeing which delivered 648 aircraft.
In 2012, Boeing had beaten Airbus in terms of orders and deliveries.
For 2014, Airbus chief executive Fabrice Bregier said that the company is targeting booking at least 626 orders, and that it had increased its catalogue prices for aircraft by 2.6 per cent as of January 1.
Airbus' parent company Airbus Group, formerly known as EADS, publishes its annual results on February 27.
Bregier said that the company was considering increasing production of its best-selling plane, the Airbus A320 which is popular with low-cost airlines, to satisfy global demand for medium-range aircraft.
"If the market remains positive, if the customer needs more aircraft, I think we would be silly not to ramp up again," he told journalists.
Airbus is producing 42 A320 aircraft per month and had said that it did not want to increase this rate of production until it had converted to producing the latest, more fuel-efficient version, the A320neo.
The first A320neo is due to be delivered in 2015.
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