SIPRI’s Arms Industry Database report: global arms sales up by 4.6%; India ranked 10th and US topped 

On December 9, 2019 the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released a report on worldwide arms sales titled “The SIPRI Top 100 Arms Producing and Military Services Companies, 2018”. As per the report, arms sales rose up by 4.6% in 2018 in comparison with 2017. India ranked 10th in the overall country ranking while, United States(US) topped the list. The report in detail are as follows:Report on India:

i.3 Indian defence companies (all state owned) were ranked in the top 100 list. They were

• Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL)- rank 38
• Indian Ordnance Factories-  rank 56 and
• Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL)- rank 62.

ii.Sales drop: The arms manufacturing of the above mentioned 3 public sector Indian defence companies dropped by 6.9% from 2017 to stand at $5.9 billion in 2018 despite a rise in the global weapons sales.  They totally accounted for 1.4% of the arms sales of the top 100 companies.

• Reason for sales drop: The main reason for the sales drop was due to Indian Ordnance Factory’s significant 27% drop in arms sales. Excluding the Indian Ordnance Factory’s arms sale,

General Report:

i.Total turnover: The turnover of the 100 biggest arms manufacturers were $420 billion. The sales of arms and military services by companies listed in the top 100 have increased by 47% since 2002.

ii.US Turnover: The United States(US) manufacturers alone accounted for 59% of the total market with a turnover of $246 billion, up 7.2% from 2018.

• The world’s largest arms maker remains the U.S. firm Lockheed Martin, since 2009. It ranked 1st in the list with turnover of $47.3 billion accounting for 11% of the world market in 2018.
• For the 1st time since 2002, top 5 spots were held by companies based in the US. Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics ranked 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th rank respectively.
• These 5 companies alone accounted for $148 billion arms sales in 2018.

iii.Russia: Russia ranked second in the arms production, and it accounted for 8.6% of the market just ahead of the

• The sale of Almaz-Antey, the largest arms producer in Russia,rose by 18% in 2018, to $ 9.6 billion.

iv.United Kingdom that ranked third with 8.4% arms production and France with 5.5% of the total arms production in the world.

v.China: This year, 2019, China was not included in the study as there were insufficient data. But SIPRI estimated that around 3-7 chinese businesses were in the top 100 arms manufacturers.
China has spent 1.9% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence every year since 2013.

vi.Increase in arms manufacturing: The increase in arms manufacturing accounted mainly to the continued sales growth in other countries by means of exports.

vii.Arms bases:

• 80 of the 100 top arms producers in 2018 were based in the USA(United States of America), Europe and Russia.
• Of the remaining 20 arms producers , 6 were based in Japan, 3 in Israel, India and South Korea, respectively, 2 in Turkey and 1 each in Australia, Canada and Singapore.

Companies ranking:

Overall country ranking:

About Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI):
Founded- 6 May 1966.
Headquarters- Stockholm, Sweden.