Recession, what recession? It has been business as usual for the world’s biggest arms companies who have seen sales of weapons and military services rise during 2010 and exceed $400bn. In this blog we analyse the top arms producers by company and country. The analysis is based on data published by The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). There has been very little change between 2009 and 2010 (1% change)

The top 100 list of arms-producing and military services companies in the world is dominated by North America and Western Europe although Chinese companies are not included in the rankings and data on Russian arms manufacturers is limited due to insufficient data.

Sales from the 44 US-based companies featured accounted for over 60% of all arms sales by the top 100 producers in 2010, with Lockheed Martin topping the list at $35.7bn worth of arms sales in 2010. UK trails behind with $53.4bn with BAE systems contributing to more that 50% of this revenue.

The visualisation below has been created using Tableau Software. It is interactive. Click on any object and do your own analysis.