Israel ranked as the world's sixth largest arms exporter in 2012 with $2.4 billion worth of defense sales, according to IHS Jane's.

IHS Jane's, a business intelligence company specializing in military and national security topics, put the United States at the top of its list, with more than $28 billion in defense deals in 2012.

Trailing behind the U.S. in the top five were Russia, which exported $10 billion's worth of weapons, France with $4.5 billion in sales, the United Kingdom, at an export total of $4.5 billion of weapons and Germany, which last year sold weapons and defense equipment worth $3 billion. Among the top 10 weapons exporters, Germany was the only country to see a drop of its arms exports compared to 2008 figures.

Following Israel in seventh to tenth place on the IHS Jane's list were Italy, China, Canada and Sweden.

While Israel did not make it into IHS Jane's top five this year, the company's analysts noted that it came in second in the world in sales of unmanned aerial vehicles, behind just the U.S.

The company also predicted that Israel would sell twice the number of drones as the U.S. by 2014 – and would become the world's largest exporter of UAVs at some point this year.

In its report, IHS Jane's also showed that Israel's defense exports increased by 74 percent since 2008, largely due to deals signed with India.

IHS Jane's estimates contradict those of other companies such as Frost and Sullivan, which reported Israel to already be the world's largest exporter of UAVs.

The IHS Jane's report also ranked countries according to their weapons acquisitions, with India topping the list at $5.27 billion, followed by Saudi Arabia ($3.74 billion) and the United Arab Emirates (close to $3.5 billion). The size of weapons deals with these countries grew dramatically following the world economic crisis, according to IHS Jane's. Following these three on the list, were

Turkey, Egypt, South Korea, Australia and Iraq also ranked high on IHS Jane's list in terms of annual weapons purchases.

The IHS Jane's report also predicted that defense budgets in Asia-Pacific countries would be larger than those of the U.S. and Canada in less than a decade. The share of weapons deals with Western Europeans countries has already begun dropping in recent years, while the size of weapons deals with countries in the East continue to rise.

The global budget for defense has also increased over the years and is expected by IHS Jane's to reach $1.65 trillion by 2021, which would constitute 9.3 percent growth above the 2013 figure.