TEAL GROUP PREDICTS 600,000 MISSILES VALUED AT $103.7 BILLION WILL BE BUILT IN THE 2006-2015 DECADE

An estimated 600,000 missiles of virtually all types valued at $103.7 billion are expected to be built throughout the world in the 2006-2015 decade, predict Teal Group analysts in their latest world missile market production forecast released at a major international trade show. 

Teal analysts released their forecast at Asian Aerospace 2006, the international aerospace exhibition for the Far East and Pacific regions.  Asian Aerospace 2006 is taking place Feb. 21-26, 2006, at the Changi Exhibition Centre in Singapore.

“We believe that declines in world defense spending in the 1990s have bottomed out in the past few years so far as missiles are concerned,” said Steve Zaloga, lead analyst for Teal Group’s World Missiles & UAVs Briefing, the 1,400-page, monthly-updated competitive intelligence service, in which this and seven other missile, UAV and smart munitions market forecasts and 156 individual missile system reports are published and regularly updated. 

“In budget-strapped times, it is more cost effective to add a new generation of dogfight missiles to an older aircraft than to buy a new aircraft,” said Zaloga.  “Likewise, ships and many other weapons categories.  Missiles offer to increase the combat capabilities of many weapons platforms without the need for the expense of replacing the system itself.”

Air defense missiles still constitute the largest single missile market with the expected production of 48,194 missiles, valued at $24.3 billion, or 23.4% of the total $103.7 billion world missile market during the 2006-2015 decade.  Then,  41,610 air-to-surface missiles valued at $16.3 billion, or 15.7%, rank second by forecasted value in the same period.

When Teal analysts produced their first world missile market production forecast some nine years ago at IDEX 97 near Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, smart munitions were not much of a factor.  Today, Teal analysts report that 312,250 smart munitions (i.e., 273,635 guided bombs and 38,615 smart AT munitions) rank third largest worldwide with a combined value of  $13.8 billion, or 13.3%. 

And unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s), which comprised only 5,382 forecasted units valued at $2.9 billion, or 2.5%, in 1997, now rank fourth largest with 17,976 projected units valued at $12.5 billion, or 12.l%.  Surface-to-surface missiles number 6,206 forecasted units valued at $9.8 billion, or 9.4%, followed by 140,759 anti-tank missiles valued at $10.9 billion, or 10.6%; then, 41,470 air-to-air missiles valued at $9.6 billion, or 9.3%. And, finally, 5,050 forecasted anti-ship missiles valued at $6.4 billion, or 6.2% of the total world missile market are expected to be produced in the 2006-2015 decade.