Turkish firms ranked among top 100 defense companies

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkish companies secured their positions in the most prestigious defense industry list, Defense News Top 100.

In 2018, Turkey's defense giants posted nearly $4 billion defense revenue, according to the U.S.-based magazine Defense News' annual list on company sales, released on Monday.

The country's largest defense electronics company Aselsan ranked 52nd in the list, up from the 55th last year, with its $1.8 billion defense revenue.

Aselsan is active in military and civil telecommunications, radar, electronic warfare, defense, weapons, command control and navigation systems.

Aviation company TAI ranked 69th and defense technology firm STM came in 85th with $1.05 billion and $564.8 million defense revenue, respectively.

Missile producer Roketsan, which ranked 89th in the list, recorded $522.8 million defense revenue. It was the 96th in the previous list.

In the list, the first four places were taken by the U.S. companies, with Lockheed Martin ranking first with nearly $50.5 billion defense revenue.

Meanwhile, Chinese companies are also included in the list for the first time since 2001.

Chinese companies total defense revenue was around $97 billion in 2018.

While 41 defense companies were from the U.S., 10 firms were British, 8 Chinese, 4 Turkish, 4 South Korean, 4 French, and rest of them from around the world.