Embraer S.A. (ẽbɾaˈɛɾ) is a Brazilian multinational aerospace corporation. It designs, manufactures, and sells commercial, military, executive, and agricultural aircraft, as well as provides leasing and aviation support services. Embraer is the third largest producer of civil aircraft after Boeing and Airbus, and the leading provider of regional jets worldwide; it is also among the world's top 100 defense contractors. The company is headquartered in São José dos Campos, São Paulo.
Embraer was founded in 1969 by the Brazilian government as a national champion for domestic aerospace technology. It initially focused primarily on supplying military aircraft to the Brazilian Air Force, but by the 1980s began producing a series of successful commuter and regional airliners for export. The company was privatized in 1994 and began expanding to the production of larger regional airliners and smaller business jets; it became public in 2000.
Embraer is organized into four segments: Commercial Aviation, which manages the development, production, sale, and lease of commercial jets, as well as the provision of aviation support services; Defense & Security, which consists of research, development, production, modification, and support for military defense aircraft, and related products and services; Executive Aviation, which concerns the development, production, and sale of executive jets, and support services; and Other, which entails the production of structural parts, mechanical and hydraulic systems, agricultural crop-spraying aircraft, and customer training.
Seeking to develop a domestic aircraft industry, the Brazilian government under Getúlio Vargas' Estado Novo made several investments in the aerospace industry during the 1940s and 1950s. However, it was not until 1969, following the establishment of the Brazilian military dictatorship after the 1964 coup d'état, that Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (Embraer) was created as a government-owned corporation.