The turnover of the 100 biggest arms manufacturers came to $420 billion, thanks in large part to the U.S. market, said the report.

U.S. manufacturers alone accounted for 59% of the market, or a turnover of $246 billion, up 7.2% on the previous year.

Arms sales rose by nearly 5% worldwide in 2018 in a market dominated by the United States, according to a new report published Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The turnover of the 100 biggest arms manufacturers came to $420 billion, thanks in large part to the U.S. market, said the report. U.S. manufacturers alone accounted for 59% of the market, or a turnover of $246 billion, up 7.2% on the previous year.

“This is a significant increase over one year considering the already high levels of U.S. combined arms sales,” Aude Fleurant, the director of SIPRI’s arms transfers and military expenditure programme said in a release.

Russia was second in the rankings with 8.6% of the market, just ahead of the United Kingdom on 8.4% and France on 5.5% but all were dwarfed by the United States at 59%.

The study did not include China, for which there was insufficient data, but SIPRI’s research estimated that there were between three and seven Chinese businesses in the top 100 arms manufacturers.

Two major European companies, Airbus and MBDA were also responding to “demand due to ongoing armed conflicts and severe tensions in several regions”, Ms. Fleurant added.

The world’s largest arms maker remains the U.S. firm Lockheed Martin, as it has been since 2009, this last year with a turnover of $47.3 billion. Its sales alone account for 11% of the world market.

Read the full report in PDF at Sipri.org

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George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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Mark B
Mark B
4 years ago

It would interesting to know how much of this increase is simply inflation and how much is down to fellow NATO members attempting to reach their 2% target?

spyintheskyuk
spyintheskyuk
4 years ago

A while back I believe it to be a thread on here, it was stated by someone that France was well ahead of the UK on defence sales from some source or other. I stated that in reports I had seen in recent years the Uk was a good bit ahead (mainly due to SA sales mind) but the gap was admittedely narrowing. This report seems to confirm that assessment of mine. I am not trying to score points here, in any way but as this report confirms I wasn’t imagining it all I am curious to know where the… Read more »

BB85
BB85
4 years ago
Reply to  spyintheskyuk

I’m no expert but I always thought UK sales where hugely skewed by Typhoon exports to Saudi. Recent wins for the T26 frigate will not be included in these figures and I’m struggling to understand what else makes up our exports as we do not have a lot of big ticket items. There must be a heck of a lot of SME’s that supply global supply chains.

Andy
Andy
4 years ago
Reply to  spyintheskyuk

It’s companies, not countries.

BB85
BB85
4 years ago
Reply to  Andy

That’s what I mean by UK SME’s. I would expect sales for BAE Inc to be counted in US figures and sales for BAE Hagglunds to be counted in Sweden figures.
I can’t think of any big ticket UK exports apart from Typhoon that the UK performs finally assembly on, which means we must have a huge part of the supply chain for a lot of other exports, ie engines, radar components, electronics etc.

CPW
CPW
4 years ago
Reply to  BB85

My thoughts exactly BB85!