The list is here: Find out how defense companies performed in FY22

The apex of the Defense News Top 100 list for 2023 might look familiar to some of our loyal readers.

The stability of the defense market is reflected in the top nine companies on the list, all of which were in the top 10 last year — though the order has slightly shifted.

Growing defense revenue isn’t something a company can do overnight. One of the fastest ways is by merging or acquiring another company, but the U.S. government has made clear its opposition to major mergers — as well as some smaller deals. (Lockheed Martin unsuccessfully sought to acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne in 2021 and 2022; now L3Harris Technologies has acquired it .)

The other, generally slower way is finding new work. But the defense budget , while boosted by Ukraine war spending, is generally about flat these days, meaning there’s no massive surge of money into new or unexpected programs.

Even so, there is some movement on the list. Boeing dropped to the fifth spot, down from 3rd last year, and its lowest ranking since it placed 5th in the 2018 list. The company last year reorganized its defense unit after delays of key programs, rising costs, quality concerns and significant losses.

Ukraine’s Ukroboronprom moved up 24 spots this year to 65th place, as the country has spent nearly 18 months fighting Russia’s invasion.

A closer look at the list

Just over half of the companies on the list are U.S. businesses. Thirty-one firms are based in Europe, and eight non-Chinese firms from the Asia-Pacific region are on the list.

Still, we recognize this list has some gaps. We can’t capture the defense revenue of Indian companies this year in large part because our correspondent there was arrested . We rely on a think tank to provide the data for the Chinese companies; three state-owned enterprises that were in last year’s list did not release figures for consideration in this version by press time.

There are no Russian firms on this year’s list because they did not respond to our requests for information and we couldn’t locate reputable sources of data.

Some private companies with significant defense revenue, such as General Atomics, opt not to provide data, while technology companies including Amazon and Google don’t offer comprehensive information on their defense revenue.

We also opt not to include medical and pharmaceutical companies in our list, even though they often have sizable military business, because we focus on companies producing weapons systems, military capabilities and associated technology.

That said, we hope this list offers a useful snapshot of who’s who in the modern industrial base as well as a window into how it’s changing.

Marjorie Censer is the editor of Defense News. She was previously editor of Inside Defense. She has also worked as the defense editor at Politico, as well as a staff writer at the Washington Post, the Carroll County Times and the Princeton Packet.

2023 年《国防新闻》百强榜单的榜首对于我们的一些忠实读者来说可能并不陌生。

国防市场的稳定性体现在榜单前九名公司身上，这些公司去年也都位列前十——尽管排名顺序略有变化。

国防收入的增长并非一朝一夕之功。最快捷的途径之一是通过合并或收购其他公司，但美国政府已明确表示反对大规模并购，甚至一些规模较小的交易。（洛克希德·马丁公司在2021年和2022年曾试图收购Aerojet Rocketdyne公司，但均告失败；如今，L3Harris Technologies公司已成功收购了该公司。）

另一种途径，虽然通常速度较慢，是寻找新的工作。但国防预算虽然因乌克兰战争开支而有所增加，但目前总体上保持平稳，这意味着不会出现大量资金涌入新的或意料之外的项目。

即便如此，榜单上还是出现了一些变动。波音公司跌至第五位，低于去年的第三位，这也是自2018年排名第五以来的最低排名。该公司去年对其国防部门进行了重组，原因是关键项目延期、成本上升、质量问题以及重大亏损。

由于乌克兰已经与俄罗斯的入侵进行了近 18 个月的斗争，乌克兰国防工业公司今年的排名上升了 24 位，位列第 65 位。

仔细查看这份清单

榜单上超过半数的公司是美国企业。31家公司总部位于欧洲，另有8家非中国企业来自亚太地区。

不过，我们也意识到这份名单存在一些遗漏。今年我们无法获得印度公司国防收入的统计数据，主要是因为我们在印度的记者被捕了。中国公司的数据则依赖于一家智库；截至发稿时，去年榜单上的三家国有企业尚未提交相关数据，因此我们无法将其纳入今年的统计。

今年的榜单上没有俄罗斯公司，因为他们没有回应我们的信息请求，我们也找不到可靠的数据来源。

一些国防收入巨大的私营公司，如通用原子公司，选择不提供相关数据；而包括亚马逊和谷歌在内的科技公司，也没有提供关于其国防收入的全面信息。

我们还选择不将医疗和制药公司纳入我们的名单，即使它们通常拥有相当可观的军工业务，因为我们专注于生产武器系统、军事能力和相关技术的公司。

也就是说，我们希望这份名单能够提供一个有用的概览，展现现代工业基础中的重要人物，以及它正在发生的变化。

玛乔丽·森瑟是《防务新闻》的编辑。她此前曾担任《内幕防务》的编辑。她还曾担任《政治报》的防务编辑，以及《华盛顿邮报》、《卡罗尔县时报》和《普林斯顿邮报》的撰稿人。