Arms sales increased nearly 5% worldwide in 2018, says new report

Arms sales across the globe have risen nearly 5 per cent worldwide, according to reports. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United States still dominates the world arms market. The top 100 arms manufacturers around the world are believed to have had $420 billion and a large part of that was due to the US market.

Global Arms sales increase 

US manufacturers alone amounted to 59 per cent of the market share which was up 7.2 per cent from the previous year with an annual turnover of $246 billion. Considering the already high combined arms sales to the US this is a very significant increase according to Aude Fleurant the director of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's arms transfers and military expenditure programme. Trumps decision to modernise the US armed forces have benefitted US arms manufacturer firms.
After the US, Russia was second in terms of arms production with a market percentage of only 8.4 per cent. This is followed by France at 5.5 per cent. The study conducted by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute did not include China because they did not have enough data on China but it is believed that the several Chinese arms manufactures featured in the top 100 arms manufacturers.

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An increasing domestic demand, as well as increased sales to other countries, has allowed the Russian-firm, Almaz-Antei to jump to ninth place on the list. The firm has a turnover of $9.6 billion which is an increase of 18 per cent over the previous year. Turkey's goal to be self-sufficient in arms supply has pushed Turkey's arms industry to have at least two businesses in the top 100 arms manufactures list with an annual turnover of $2.8. The world's largest arms supplier remains the US firm Lockheed Martin, it has remained on the top since 2009 with an annual turn over of $47.3 billion.

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