Saab AB (originally Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget^ⓘ, lit. 'The Swedish Aeroplane Corporation', acronym SAAB), with subsidiaries collectively known as the Saab Group (Swedish: Saabgruppen), is a Swedish aerospace and defence company primarily operating from Sweden. The company is headquartered in Stockholm, but its development and manufacturing operations are undertaken in Linköping.

The company was formally founded by AB Bofors in 1937, by reforming the aero engine division of company NOHAB (founded in 1930), located in Trollhättan, into a proper aircraft manufacturer. It would soon merge with aircraft manufacturer ASJA (founded in 1931), located in Linköping, in 1940, which had its own design bureau and is considered the spiritual predecessor to today's Saab AB. This formed the SAAB-concern, with the factory in Trollhättan becoming SAAB/T and the factory in Linköping (previously ASJA) becoming SAAB/L and design headquarters.

From 1947, Saab started producing automobiles, the automobile division being spun off as Saab Automobile in 1990, a joint venture with General Motors. The joint venture ended in 2000 when GM took complete ownership. From 1968 onwards the company was in a merger with commercial vehicle manufacturer Scania-Vabis, known as Saab-Scania. The two were de-merged in 1995 by the new owners, Investor AB.

Saab was founded by AB Bofors in 1937 as Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget (acronym SAAB; lit. 'The Swedish Aeroplane Corporation'), located in Trollhättan, by reforming the aircraft engine division of engineering company NOHAB (Nohab Flygmotorfabrik AB, lit. 'Nohab Aero engine factory'), which had been acquired by Bofors in 1935. Bofors had in recent years been in development with the Swedish Air Force (SAF) to create aircraft weaponry and ordnance and wanted to create an aircraft manufacturing subortinate which could take a monopoly over the SAF's future aircraft orders, a premise supported by the SAF. At the time, however, there already was a competing company formed with this premise in 1931, by the name of ASJA (AB Svenska Järnvägsverkstädernas Aeroplanavdelning, lit. 'The Swedish Railway workshops Aeroplane department'), located in Linköping, which was a successor to Svenska Aero (SA) under Sven Blomberg, head designer of the Svenska Aero Jaktfalken fighter plane. ASJA had solicit Blomberg from Svenska Aero in 1930 and later purchased the company in 1932 along with their portfolio of designs, quickly making them the leading aeroplane manufacturer in Sweden at the time.

Bofors started negotiating with ASJA in 1936 to see if they could enter into a sort of stock sharing consortium lead under a parent company. Such a deal was struck in 1937, with support from the SAF, the parent company being named AB Förenade Flygverkstäder (AFF). To ease future competition, Bofors bought out small competitor E. Sparmanns aircraft workshop, which at the time was developing a modern fighter for the SAF, under the name of Sparmann E4 [sv].

Despite the consortium, SAAB in Trollhättan (previously Nohab Flygmotorfabrik AB) still had to compete with ASJA over contracts and the cooperation never came to fruition. While SAAB in Trollhättan got a few contracts, such as license producing the Junkers Ju 86 bomber for the Swedish Air Force (SAF designation B 3) in 1938, ASJA won most of the contracts from the SAF, such as license production of the Hawker Hart (B 4) and Northrop Model 8 (B 5). After ASJA's design bureau produced the winning designs for what eventually became the Saab 17 (ASJA L-10) and Saab 18 (ASJA L-11), beating out AFF/SAAB's competing F.1 and G.1 designs, it was decided in March 1939 to scrap AFF and formally reform ASJA into the SAAB-concern, the Trollhättan factory (previously Nohab) becoming SAAB/T and the Linköping factory (previous ASJA) becoming SAAB/L, the latter becoming headquarters.

The basic initial development was the problems for the Swedish government to get quality military aircraft delivered at the beginning of the Second World War. The final trigger was the inability to get a large number of Seversky P-35 delivered from the United States. From then on the Swedish government focused on establishing domestic production and development of military aircraft which Saab became involved in, a policy that has continued to this day. The first SAAB-developed aircraft was the SAAB 17 light dive bomber (first flight: 1940-05-18), soon followed by the SAAB 18 schnellbomber (first flight: 1942-06-19) and SAAB 21 single-seat fighter (first flight: 1943-07-30), among other developments, the latter being the first aircraft to see service with a modern style ejection seat, using gunpowder to eject instead of compressed air like the contemporary German counterparts.

Originally manufacturing aircraft, the company sought ways in which to diversify its business. Before the Second World War, a majority of cars in Sweden were imported from the United States. The US car manufacturers were producing tanks during the war, and the US domestic market took all the US car production in the late 1940s. Hence there was a large supply shortage of private cars in Europe and Sweden, and buyers were facing waiting lists for years for new cars. In the late 1940s, Saab began manufacturing cars at its Saab Automobile division, based in Trollhättan. The first car was the Saab 92; full-scale production started 12 December 1949, based on the prototype Ursaab. Around 1950 the style "Saab" started being used instead of the all caps "SAAB".