Monday, 12 April 2010 at 18:41, Reuters, London
Britain's BAE Systems was the world's top arms supplier in 2008, outstripping U.S. defence groups for the first time due to demand for mine protection in Afghanistan, a report said on Monday.
The study by the Stockholm International Peace Institute (SIPRI) showed BAE had displaced U.S. aviation company Boeing Co from the No.1 spot.
Boeing dropped to No.3 and Lockheed Martin, the world's largest defence contractor by market value, rose to No.2, SIPRI said in a statement.
"BAE really shows the increasing internationalization of the arms industry and the attractiveness of the U.S. market," said SIPRI researcher Susan Jackson, adding that a jump in U.S. sales of armoured vehicles was a key factor in the ranking.
BAE, which recently pleaded guilty in U.S. courts to a charge of conspiring to make false statements, sold more than $32 billion worth of weapons in 2008 as it rode a rising trend of global arms sales, the report said.
The firm agreed to pay a $400 million fine in the U.S. case just a month after reaching a $50 million settlement with Britain's Serious Fraud Office in a parallel action related to the sale of an air traffic control system in Tanzania.
SIPRI's Jackson said the rankings for 2008 were only being published now because it took a long time to sift through the huge amount of data from the companies. She said she was still collecting data for 2009.
"It's fairly certain that it's (BAE) still a top player in 2009," she said, without offering further details.
Total arms sales for the top 100 weapons suppliers reached $325 billion in 2008, an increase of $39 billion over 2007.
In 2009, BAE reported total annual sales of $34.6 billion.
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