Dec 17, 2014

On Dec. 15, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released its report, “The SIPRI Top 100 Arms-Producing and Military Services Companies, 2013.” In addition to valuable data on global arms and military services sales, the report also offers interesting insight into the Middle East. At a glance, here are some of the facts:

The 2013 revenues of the 100 largest arms and military services companies totaled $402 billion. The primary customers of these companies were their own armies. The report, which does not cover China because of a lack of transparent data, notes that the decline in global arms sales that started in 2011 is continuing and the reductions in the US defense budget have played a prominent role in the trend.

In 2013, compared with 2011 and 2012, the global arms sales share of US and European companies registered a 5% decline. Despite this drop, 38 US and 21 Western European companies that were in the Top 100 list still realized 84.2% of global arms and military services sales. According to a projection by the British Defense Ministry, this pattern is not likely to change until 2045, as Brazil, Russia, India and China continue to expand their defense budgets.

Another interesting point is the ascent of 10 Russian companies to the Top 100 list and their $31 billion in sales, a 20% increase from the past year. The company that made the most sales, by a 118% increase compared with a year ago, is the Russian Tactical Missiles Corporation, No. 46 in the rankings. Experts say this increase is mainly due to Russian’s increasing spending on armaments in recent years. But it must be noted that the Russian companies may suffer losses in their weapons sales in 2014 because of US and European sanctions, the decrease in crude oil prices and the Ukrainian crisis.

For many years, SIPRI has classified the leading arms manufacturers in categories such as North American, European and Russian. This year, however, it introduced a new category: "emerging producers." For the first time, the report notes that India, Brazil, Singapore, South Korea and Turkey have shares in the global arms markets (3.6% of the total arms sales of the Top 100). Audi Fleurant, the director of the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditures Program, says these companies have entered the Top 100 because of the decisions of their countries to increase the share of domestic production of armaments.