The United States still the biggest arms dealers

Steph Deschamps / December 7, 2020

The twenty-five largest arms manufacturers in the world have seen their sales increase by 8.5% over the past year, according to the latest report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). The first exporting country remains the United States.

Defense equipment spending continued to increase over the past year. The twenty-five largest defense companies recorded in 2019 a turnover of 361 billion dollars (not far from 300 billion euros). Among these companies are twelve American companies accounting for 61% of the world turnover.

The five largest US manufacturers, namely Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics, garnered 166 billion in sales. China is second on the podium, with 16% of the world arms trade, ahead of Russia (3.9%). Due to sanctions following the war in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, arms exports from Russia are limited.

In addition, given the economic situation, the country has decided to slow down the modernization of the Red Army. The six largest European manufacturers together account for 18% of the global arms trade. The largest of them, Germany's Rheinmetall, saw sales grow 4% to $ 3.9 billion (3.2 billion euros) last year.