Weapons Industry: Global arms sales in 2015 reached €348 billion with US share €225.47 or 80% of total reports SIPRI

Global weapons industry sales reached  €348 billion in 2015

Arms sales went on a downward slide last year, falling by 0.6 percent compared to 2014, according to the latest analysis on the global arms industry by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The trade had been experiencing a downward trend since 2011, but the reduction in arms sales last year showed that the pace of decline had slowed.

Despite the decrease, arms sales for the world's top 100 companies in 2015 reached $370.7 billion (348 billion euros), the think tank said in its study, indicating that the sinking numbers were no sign that the world was getting more peaceful.

"It [arms sales] has decreased, but it is still over a third higher than it used to be in the early 2000s," Aude Fleurant, director of the SIPRI arms and military expenditure program, told DW. "It is slowing down, possibly indicating a reversal of the trend since 2010. So it is difficult to say at this stage …

There are contradictory trends all over the world and it is difficult to identify a clear trend so far," she added.

US firms remain on top of the arms sales industry.

Companies based in the US dominated the arms business, with total sales amounting to $209.7 billion (€225.47 Billion) , or more than 80 percent of the total arms business in the world. Lockheed Martin maintained its position as the largest arms producer on the planet.

EU-Digest