Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has recently published a fact sheet titled “The SIPRI Top 100 Arms‑Producing and Military Services Companies, 2016”. It is an analysis of the 2016 year showing the top 100 arms trading companies as well as the tendencies and structure of the global arms market. We’ll take a look at the key points of this study in our article. If you want to read the original document, click here.

Total arms sales of companies in the SIPRI Top 100 list (from 2002 to 2016).                                  Images by www.SIPRI.org

The total sum of sold arms in 2016 by the Top 100 companies (excluding China) was $374.8 billion. That is 1.9% more than in 2015. The US companies’ total sales sum is $217.2 billion which is the 57.9% of global sales of the Top 100 list. 38 US companies made into this list which managed to reach a 4% total sales increase first time in 5 years preceding 2016.

Western European companies’ share is $91.6 billion and sales of Russian companies of this Top 100 list is $26.6 billion. South Korea sold arms worth of $8.4 billion. This is not a huge sum compared to the leading countries, however, South Korea had the highest arms sales growth percentage (20.6%) in 2016 compared to 2015. You can see that in the graph below.

Percentage change in arms sales of companies in the SIPRI Top 100, by country, 2015–2016.

Top 10 companies on the list are based in the USA or Western European countries. Interesting to note that over the past 15 years same 12 companies have been occupying the top ten positions.

Chinese companies are not covered in SIPRI studies because of lack of reliable data sources.

Here is a pie chart showing the sales percentages by country.

And you can find the whole Top 100 SIPRI list embedded below. Figures are in millions of US Dollars.

Dots (..) mean that there is no data available.

Dashes (-) mean that the company did not rank on the SIPRI Top 100 list in 2015.

“S” indicates the subsidiary companies.

What interesting numbers or tendencies have you noticed? Let us know in the comments section.