The segment table is where a prime's business actually lives. Lockheed Martin's 2019 Form 10-K describes its Missiles and Fire Control (MFC) segment as a provider of air and missile defense systems and tactical and strike missiles. Read structurally, MFC is a franchise business: programs that recur across many years and convert defense appropriations into revenue on a long, predictable cadence.

The 10-K's own description spells out how broad that franchise is.

“MFC provides air and missile defense systems; tactical missiles and air-to-ground precision strike weapon systems; logistics; fire control systems; mission operations support, readiness, engineering support and integration services; manned and unmanned ground vehicles; and energy management solutions.”— Lockheed Martin 2019 Form 10-K source

The 2019 figures show that franchise compounding. The 10-K reports MFC net sales of $10,131 million, up $1.7 billion, or 20%, from $8,462 million in 2018 (and from $7,282 million in 2017) — a 39% rise over two years. Operating profit climbed to $1,441 million from $1,248 million, a $193 million, or 15%, increase, with operating margin at 14.2% (versus 14.7% in 2018). Year-end backlog reached $25,796 million, up from $21,363 million in 2018 and $17,729 million in 2017 — roughly 2.5 years of sales committed before 2020 began. The backlog grew in absolute terms for a third straight year — $17.7 billion, then $21.4 billion, then $25.8 billion — the clearest sign that the franchise base was expanding, not merely being worked off. Over the same span net sales went $7.3 billion, $8.5 billion, $10.1 billion, so the segment was adding backlog faster than it was converting it to sales, a book-to-bill comfortably above one in each year. For a markets reader, that combination is the financial fingerprint of a defense franchise in a sustained funded-growth phase rather than a single good contract year.

The filing's net-sales bridge names where the 2019 growth came from. About $940 million was added by "tactical and strike missile programs due to increased volume (primarily precision fires, new hypersonic development programs, and classified development programs)"; roughly $465 million by integrated air and missile defense "primarily PAC-3 and THAAD"; and about $300 million by sensors and global sustainment, primarily the SOF GLSS logistics program and Apache. On the profit line, the 10-K credits about $100 million to air and missile defense (higher volume and higher risk retirements on PAC-3 and THAAD) and about $60 million to tactical and strike missiles. The recurring "hypersonic development programs" mention is notable this early: by 2019 hypersonics was already an identified growth line inside MFC, not just a future bet, and it appears alongside "classified development programs" as a driver of the tactical-and-strike increase. The mix tells you something about margin trajectory too: the air-and-missile-defense gains came with higher risk retirements on mature PAC-3 and THAAD work, while the fastest-growing tactical line leaned on development programs that typically carry lower booking rates early. That is the likely explanation for why a 20% sales gain produced only a 15% profit gain and a slightly lower margin -- growth was tilting toward newer, less-retired development content even as the legacy interceptor lines threw off profit.

That cadence is the point. Air and missile defense systems are bought in multi-year quantities, sustained over decades, and upgraded in blocks. So MFC revenue is less about any single award landing and more about the installed base of programs being funded year after year. For a markets desk, that means the segment's near-term revenue is more legible than a new-space pure-play's, where a single contract can swing the quarter. A 20% sales gain paired with a rising backlog is the signature of a program portfolio in a funded growth phase rather than a one-time award spike.

The disciplined caveat is concentration: a franchise business is also a customer-concentration business, and MFC's customer is overwhelmingly the U.S. government and allied militaries, with the U.S. Army the principal service customer. Concentration cuts both ways — it underwrites visibility, but it ties the segment's fate to appropriations and program-of-record decisions outside the company's control. The 10-K's own list reads as a roster of programs of record. It describes PAC-3 as "an advanced defensive missile for the U.S. Army and international customers designed to intercept and eliminate incoming airborne threats using kinetic energy" and THAAD as "a transportable defensive missile system... designed to engage targets both within and outside of the Earth's atmosphere." Alongside them sit the Multiple Launch Rocket System and HIMARS, the Hellfire air-to-ground missile, JASSM, and the shoulder-fired Javelin on the tactical side, with the Apache fire-control system, Sniper targeting pod, and IRST21 sensor on the fire-control side. Each is durable and appropriations-dependent in equal measure — the source of MFC's visibility and the source of its single concentration risk.

The forward question entering 2020 is whether missile-defense demand keeps the MFC program stack funded at current intensity. The 20% growth, the third consecutive year of backlog expansion, and the explicit hypersonics and classified-development call-outs all argued yes. For a markets reader, MFC in 2019 is a clean template for how to read a defense prime's segment disclosure: the table converts appropriations into a multi-year revenue and backlog cadence, the net-sales bridge tells you which franchises are driving it, and the margin line warns when growth is tilting toward lower-retired development work. Track segment net sales direction, year-end backlog, and the mix of new awards versus sustainment. Filing on sec.gov; index via SEC filings.