MOBILE, Ala. — Airbus, the European airplane maker, said Monday that it would build its first factory in the United States by investing $600 million over the next five years to build an assembly line here for its popular A320 single-aisle jet.
The move into the heart of Boeing’s home market is part of a long-term strategy by Airbus aimed at doubling its share of the world’s largest market for 150-seat airplanes, which includes Boeing’s top-selling 737.
‘‘This is the right move at the right time and in the right place for Airbus,’’ said Fabrice Bregier, the new chief executive of Airbus.
‘‘With this step, we will be the only genuine global player in the aerospace industry,’’ he added.
The move follows about nine months of intense discussions within Airbus and its parent company, European Aeronautic Defense and Space, said several Airbus executives with knowledge of the project. The aerospace group is betting that US airlines, many of which have large fleets of aging aircraft, will be enticed to consider an A320 that was made in America over a Boeing 737.
The plan calls for the construction of a plant capable of assembling 40 to 50 A320 jets a year by the end of 2017, according to these executives.
Construction of the site — which will build aircraft from prefabricated sections built at Airbus factories in Germany and France — is set to begin next summer, with the first A320 assemblies beginning in 2015, Airbus said.
Alabama officials said the state would provide Airbus with more than $100 million in tax breaks and other incentives to support the project. The A320 plant is expected to create roughly 1,000 new jobs, a figure that includes direct Airbus employees as well as jobs with suppliers.
The expansion was being met with caution by labor unions representing Airbus’s 56,000 employees in Germany, France, Britain, and Spain. Company managers briefed union leaders at Airbus’s two European assembly sites, in Hamburg, Germany, and Toulouse, France, early Monday.
Boeing, for its part, has dismissed claims by Airbus and Alabama officials of the plant’s economic impact, arguing that the numbers of new jobs that will be created ‘‘pale in comparison to the thousands of US jobs destroyed by illegal subsidies’’ Airbus has received from European governments over the past three decades.
The United States and the European Union are locked in a trade dispute before the World Trade Organization over accusations of illegal government support to their respective aircraft industries.