"Measured by performance, 2021 has been our record year. And 2022 is very likely to be even better," he was quoted as saying.

Rheinmetall is scheduled to report full-year results for 2021 on March 17.

Papperger said the good performance, which he did not quantify, was due to a strong increase in the group's order backlog.

"At currently 24 billion euros it is already higher than ever and could rise by more than 10 billion euros again this year," he was quoted as saying.

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Sandra Maler)